What jobs do people have that pay £200k+?

[Diamondpearl123]

I am thinking about making a career change to earn more (aiming for £200k +) but would like to understand what types of roles I should aim for and whether they are realistic for me. Grateful to understand people’s experiences and hopefully start a good discussion. Some questions below. Thank you

• What is your job?
• What is your salary?
• How many years into your career are you?
• What are the key qualifications/experience for the role?
• What hours do you work?

With respect, if you’re a SAHM you have no idea how some of us manage to earn these salaries AND have a bit of leisure time to post on MN, and I’m afraid you don’t have the right to question if we are telling the truth.

Is that likely considering the relatively small audience for mumsnet forums?!

Mumsnet has millions of users and there just a handful on this thread who have said they themselves earn that much. Not that unbelievable.

It annoys me when these questions are asked, and people who have absolutely no idea what is involved in holding a highly paid job (other than what their DH tells them 🙄) come onto these threads to suggest that most posts can’t be true. It always happens.

Why on earth would someone earning a high salary NOT be able to take 20 seconds out of their day to post on MN??? Do you think we work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week or something???

When I used to commute roughly 90 minutes one way, I spent the majority of it whiling away the time on MN. Anyone who tracked my posts then would think I was jobless, rather than co-running a team of 100, as I was at the time 🤣🤣🤣

Yes there are some odd ideas of what salaries these really senior people are on. My organisation isn't even what you'd call huge - 2000 ish employees, £200m ish turnover. My boss is CEO and she's on many multiples of that.

Especially when that DH has no long hours and loads of flexibility. Sounds like he'd have time to post on Mumsnet, why wouldn't I?

I work in a magic circle law firm (but I’m not a lawyer). The majority of the lawyers earn vastly more than 200k, with partners taking home in the millions. It wouldn’t be for me - the hours are nuts - but if you can stomach it it’s a very high earning career

You can check in company accounts. All PLC and companies over a certain size publish this stuff.

Anyone can use AI though?

@Lostinmiddleage With respect, if you are not in the working world, you perhaps have a more limited experience of what people do and how much they earn. It’s not something I really talk about with other ‘mum’ friends.

Of our good friends, at 48, most of them have at least one partner in the couple making at least £200k, often women. Off the top of my head, friends that earn easily this (and many now into 7 figures) include a solicitor leading a team specialising in public inquiry work, a senior manager one of the Big 4 consultancies specialising in cybersecurity, an ophthalmologist, a patent attorney, a couple who own a commercial property business, a solicitor who got sick of legal aid work and set up a small corporate law firm, an actuary, friends who set up abd sold a green technology company (they earn much more than that off their investments now), a friend running a successful specialist vet practice.

And it’s worth saying, they are all pretty happy and motivated in their work. I don’t see much of the gruelling hours, no holidays and crippling stress people on here say is inevitable. They generally have lovely, balanced family lives, and work hard and play hard. And they all make a pretty useful contribution to society. In fact (sorry to be controversial) my least satisfied friends are those who work in the NHS or for Local Government who feel undervalued and with little agency in their work.

They will, of course. Most "bankers" (aka people working for the banks) are not crossing even 100-120k.

There aren’t many solicitors who can switch from legal aid work (ie criminal work or some limited types of family work ) to corporate... We specialise so it effectively means starting again at the very bottom.

But that’s not what’s meant here - the PP is referring to investment bankers not people who work in your local branch of NatWest (not that there are even many of those left now).

Did you mean a senior person working at the big 4 or a senior manager - because over £200k for a senior manager is unbelievably toppy.

Why would you question it just because the website shows top10% is at a much lower 70-80k level ? These jobs are top 1% - that's how distribution works . I know more than a handful of females that earn in this range and you tend to meet more as your career progresses. Your husband is a director in corporate and earns well yes. I'm a senior director and likely earn more than him . It happens and women are slowly getting more equal opportunities

@Righteouscats She is a Managing Director and Global Head. I’m sure sue earns well into seven figures.

It’s good to have goals but as someone else has attested - when you earn big bucks, something’s got to give. Do you want to be doing a 60 hour week and having no actual quality downtime? Work out what your values are what really matters to you? You don’t need to earn six figures to live well. a lot of the people I see in my practice don’t live well because they are working tirelessly earning six figures. They have lost sight of their Self and moved so far away from their values that they don’t know who they are anymore & they realise that they’re utterly miserable.

There's a difference between using it by
(i) asking a question.
(ii) Asking a question and triangulating the answer with other known sources
(iii) Analysing the issue, planning a question set, triangulating the answers, re-checking your results, considering the implications for your company, making strategic plans.
And the above is 'amateur' use of AI, I'm sure someone who is trained in using it will be able to explain more.
At five years from retirement I am doing everything I can to use it to its full potential but at the moment I'm not thinking about training in it, that might have to change as it is moving fast.
If I were under 60 I'd be leaning hard into it.

They are not Bankers, but people working in a bank - rather different. I’m not being facetious, but really earning £14.4m in ONE year isn’t happening to the counter staff.

Management role you say, and you do a lot of “managing” 🤣

I wonder if anyone can answer that a slightly tangental question?

Is the insurance industry in fact very well paid? In my list of well paid people I left out the investment bankers because that’s a given, but several of the families we know who seem very well off indeed have a breadwinner in insurance, usually underwriters. However, aside from a female actuary I know, they are all men and have very traditional family set ups with a stay at home partner. Is insurance as conservative and (I don’t quite know the word) patriarchal perhaps, as it’s reputation used to be?

Insurance industry can pay extremely well, it effectively financial services. We share a professional institute and I know some mega (mega) rich people from insurance. Think Prudential, Aviva, LV - all insurance companies and investment companies.

@Jaffalemons Thank you. That makes sense. What is the work culture like across the industry? I know a few people at Aviva and other bigger firms, often provincial, and they seem pretty down to earth. But as I say, Lloyds underwriters appear to have a particular ‘’type.’ - and be very rich, is this fair or just the ones I know?

My husband earns over this including bonuses. His background is programming/ computer engineering. Degree in computer science and maths. 20+ years experience. Now in a managerial role in a big tech firm. He works all the time but enjoys his job.

Mix bag, lots of money attracts the usual arrogance, but it’s less obvious than some other areas. These people are less traders, more thoughtful in my experience.

But the OP is a woman, asking for feedback and advice from other women?
If you search every thread of this sort, and there are a lot , there are always women who pop up to tell us about their husbands. Why???