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?

The only people I know who are on that money have London or Home Counties jobs in finance (banking, insurance, investment management), private medical practice, law, or tech. Not saying people outside of this can’t or don’t earn over £200k but you’ve got more chance of an equivalent role paying that much in London vs Newcastle.

Not all of these jobs are c-suite or even director level. I know people who are highly specialist who earn £ due to skills not seniority.

AI will most definitely have an impact on how these roles shape in the future, but generalist skills are a good start and translate well in Ops roles within financial services
or tech companies.

What makes me happy and fulfilled is to have enough money that I’m never worried about how to pay my bills, and to be able to go on nice holidays, and have a nice house, and a comfortable and reliable car, and nice meals out, and to be able to buy high welfare meat etc. It’s fine to be motivated by money.

3 close relatives earn this. They are all in their 40s though and have been on a trajectory since leaving cert/ uni. They got good grades, followed by relevant degree/ masters and in one case a doctorate. They did finance/ business at uni - one is in tech, one is insurance and one is in finance business
development/sales.

depending on your skills you could set up your own company? Either that or push for management roles in a high paying industry - could you pivot your role towards tech?

I know various people in this band

Law - City / corporate/ finance

Finance - City based

Entrepreneurs

They all work damn hard!

Corporate lawyer. Top grades all the way through, top 5% of class, very good interview skills, ability to work 80 hour weeks. To retrain at your age (assuming you’ve already got a bachelors degree) to get to that stage and salary would take about 5-10 years. A lot of it would come down to your personality and if you’ve got the right “soft skills”.

Chat GPT is great for this kind of research OP.

I'm an in house lawyer earning just over 200k. I've been a lawyer about 15 years. Varying hours but usually around 40 I guess, worked when I like. I had a really lazy yesterday actually and will do a couple of hours later today while my son is out to make up.

If you are project manag-y then maybe targeting COO roles ? You'd need to start in a smaller org but within 2 or 3 steps would be £150k+ for orgs with £50m+ turnovers.

Oh thank god Mrs Lemon is here to impart Mr Lemon's wisdom to us and tell us what we should think.

Behold! A man...etc.

No, you don’t sound naive at all.

You need to be incredibly senior or in a sought-after niche role for that kind of money. My FIL and dad both earn(ed) well over 100k but they were very senior in their businesses and it took many years to get there. DH and I are both in our 30s, work hard and have progressed but only earn ~£35k.

FIL was very, very senior in a bank so earned mega bucks but that was in London as well.

You could write a book on how to make £200k a year. Or be a youtuber giving folk advice on making £200k a year.

My SIL is on around that. She is in finance, was on the board of one of the big banks until recently she moved into Fin Tech. She’s been working in that field for decades though. They also have a passive income through property.

@Diamondpearl123what does your boss earn? What about their boss? Think about how you can progress where you are maybe. I started my job on £24k (teacher) and am now on £72k 15 years later and the most senior person in my organisation (CEO of MAT) is on around £200k. I’m aiming to finish my career in teaching at a senior leadership level on around £100k.

Average salary in the U.K. is a fraction of this, unless you’re in incredibly niche roles it’s unlikely. There are computer engineers earning that but most are below £100k for instance. The other issue is that you may need many years to get to that level, dd knows people in her field on £150k plus 20 years older than her, you need to be chartered and have many years experience, it’s also very niche so dead man’s shoes situation

I’m a family lawyer and I set up my own firm 8 years ago. I turned over £350k last year. Profit is 40%
I don’t really work long hours. 8-4. Some weekends if I have to.
im efficient and good at what I do. in order to earn that kind of money it usually means long hours and lots of pressure and sacrifices

Management consultant here - took me 20 years to get to £200k per year (base nearer to £150k but bonus can push me to nearly £250k in a good year)

I think I earn very good money for what I do - I don’t work excessive hours and have pretty much 100% flex from my employer on when and where I work - but everything is about the clients so often up against deadlines, demands from clients etc. The work is interesting, stimulating, my colleagues are brilliant, and I do some great international travel.

If you have senior level management experience then you could switch to consulting without retraining but you need a good book of “contacts” in your network and having a niche helps (either deep industry knowledge or specific functional knowledge like supply chain or HR)

But - it is very very target driven - there is nowhere to hide. You have to be hustling every month to meet your sales and delivery targets. And to be earning £200k+ it means you are likely Partner level and the accountability for your numbers and that of your team sits with you - no one is handing you work or opportunities!

Not my job, but High Court judges earn that much. Not realistic if you’re already mid-life and not a lawyer, though.

I don't feel like my role is incredibly niche. It's pretty senior.

My most generally applicable advice is be a bit entrepreneurial about your own career. Seek out opportunities to be more visible to senior leadership, actually deliver on projects when you're meant to. Volunteer for things, be interested and curious.

I'm going to set aside modesty to be useful here but honestly the revelation (when I started managing lots of people) of how easy I was/am to manage was huge for me. I never brought problems without having thought of your solution. I'd be asked to do something and I'd just...do it. I never felt the need to endlessly clarify things or give pointless updates. Basically my bosses could assume that a project was going fine unless they heard otherwise.

I’m not on this sort of salary so can’t share my experience but I think it’s great that you’re challenging yourself and looking at what you can do. I think so many of us just end up in careers that are fine because we leave school, find a job and then progress. But that path may not be what we’re best suited to or even capable of. We decided certain things as kids/young adults and suddenly we’re middle aged and bored!

Plenty of people I know get to a point in their career where they start thinking “surely there’s more to life than this?” and change job or career. So good luck with your research and I hope you find the job you want!

I’ve since retired early but prior to finishing I was on £203k. Worked in project/programme management in some form or other for 40yrs.

Some financial advisers will earn that and more. It will depend on the calibre of clients that they have though and is more likely in London where there are more wealthy people. The hours don't need to be too bad for it either.

Law. 20+ years. Law degree and LL.M. Work normal office hours, also WFH when I want, flexibly, can always nip out pick up the kids etc.
However, this is now. Plenty of crazy hours, all nighters etc early in the career. For that reason, not sure this is an ideal option for career change later in life.

If you have to ask the question you aren't smart enough to bullshit enough and got enough about you to get there.

You are possibly going to have to spend a lot of money training. Or greasing the right poles to get to know the right people. If you don't have a face that fits, you won't get the best opportunities.

Re tech - timing is a huge thing. Also skill set. Staying in one area doesn't cut it unless you have got on the right thing at the right time with the right niche. You need to be actually be good rather than blow hot air. If you are entry level right now and below the level of AI you are pretty screwed for upwards progression.

• What is your job? - one below c level in a global big name business
• What is your salary? - last year I paid £180k tax
• How many years into your career are you? - 20
• What are the key qualifications/experience for the role? - experience in my field, some clever moves, no specific work related qualifications
• What hours do you work? Too many, normal days: 10+ hour days. Crisis days: all day and some of the night, and most of the weekend.

You couldn’t retrain to do my job. Most of the qualified people aren’t the ones in the big jobs. They have moved sideways like I have and bring other skills. We usually tack on a small qualification as a tick box but it’s pretty worthless.

I wouldn’t currently recommend my job. My team, on £50k ish are much happier and much less stressed than I am. I’m in it for a few more years until big cash pay off due to business event, and then I’m not going to work again.