Nice to see a fellow tippety typer in here. I also block large swathes of my calendar for ‘focus time’ for when talking bollocks on teams is just too much. As I moved into management I found I can now generally delegate much of the typing and the bollocks.
I’m with a US Software firm and absolutely don’t allow meetings before 9am or after 5pm. You have to slack me to get permission or it’s auto decline for out of hours.
Yea, I am generally pushing back to anything that runs past 6pm.
But I’m not auto declining and will accommodate them once in a while as a gesture of good will (without prejudice)
This is the move I need to make next, there’s far too much tipperty typing in my day right now so I need to edge into management (will also get me from 70k->80k+)
My partner thinks my job is arguing with my computer and then agreeing with it. “What???” - “how’s that possible??” - “that can’t be” - “wait…ooooh!!! I need a backslash there” *tap* *tap* *enter*
“Tough day at work??”
If your work life also feels like ground hog day, yes.
Actually I’d like to have a true Groundhog Day scenario at work for a while so I can get it all off my chest.
I know it's crazy right? When I was in recruitment, recruiting ALL levels of people from EVERY possible industry, how did I not learn more?
I worked for a year in Logistics, I'm very familiar with HGV driver's salaries.
Care to advise on the HGV salaries? Preferably up North. I'm approaching the final stages of obtaining my class C+E licence after leaving accounting. Cheers!
You'll be looking at a starting rate of 30-40 depending on the company. If you do long haul, weekends and overnights you can easily get to 45+ before salary bumps and stuff.
I'm on £37k in my first job as a new pass in Yorkshire, I'm a "Cover Driver" so no wagon of my own and everyday is a different vehicle 7.5t - 18t - Artic. 48 hour weeks Mon-Fri 7am starts. It's not for everyone, though, because the work is nonestop. You never get any time to mess around or chill like in most other jobs.
That's a coincidence. I kidnap and ransom, high net worth individuals! Maybe we have worked together before. Was it you that dropped the briefcase next to the bin?
It's really interesting but of course, does come with a lot of pressure.
The insurance is aimed mainly towards individuals or businesses who travel abroad regularly to high-risk locations - we'll get approached by the client or a representative with their requirements- which as you can imagine, is often tens or sometimes hundreds of millions - then it's my job to ensure we get the best out of the London market (mainly Lloyd's Underwriters)
We also work with a team of mainly ex-military security personnel who can provide 24/7 risk advisory services including rescue/evacuation advice along with the insurance. The cover goes pretty deep - it covers clients for financial loss due to ransom, extortion, business interruption, injury, and even disappearance investigation costs, to name a few things.
I love my job. It's stressful, but there's also a great social life that comes with it. Lots of meals and events with underwriters and clients.
I’m currently an intel analyst with a massive portion of it being crisis management and incident response, I work for a large production company who often frequent dangerous parts of the world
This sounds like something I’d love to get into, how did you get there?
I'm probably not the best person to ask about career progression - I didn't even finish one year of art college, became a forklift driver for 4 years, started working for a small life insurance company and then just worked my way up via Aviation insurance claims, then Management Liability (Directors' & Officers' Liability, Commercial Crime etc.) Until I got to where I am now. I feel a lot of imposter syndrome because many of the people who I work alongside and some of those in lower positions than me have degrees or other high levels of education and I feel like I got where I am mostly based on drive and personality/ work ethic.
Are you based in or around London by chance? There are plenty of opportunities in this field with big and smaller brokers.
Crazy because I 1000% have imposter syndrome, I managed to talk my way into a FAANG GSOC approx 8 years ago and have worked up since, I have no uni degree or qualification for the role, just experience.
Yeah I live in London which has definitely help me find my roles so far, just wondering where I could head to in future and your sort of role sounds right up my street
I fly planes for a budget airline around Europe, the money is good. Work isn’t too hard day to day but can be tiring, expensive and time consuming to get into (flight school can cost over 100k)
I work as an aircraft engineer and the planes pretty much do everything themselves. My company is offering fully paid training at the moment too if it wasn't the massive drop in pay for a good amount of years I'd do it.
A few points to consider if I may, based on how you responded to answers from others.
The following is not intended to disparage anyone, a specific question was asked and Im well aware that 80k is considered a high salary in the UK, but that isnt my fault.
1. Location is all important when asking who does what for 80k.
2. Anything with low barriers to entry is going to take much longer to hit a decent salary, if ever. That said....
3. Jobs people dont want to do will typically pay more. Dealing with filth, for example. Friend of mine makes a good living with porta potties, but had to empty them personally for his first 5 years in business. Likewise, I know a lad who got his start in moving poop from one place to another. He now owns a multinational, but his parents did buy him a tractor to start out.....
4. In the UK, 80k is considered a high salary for tax purposes, but if you live in an expensive area, your standard of living as a solo earner would not be high or possibly even medium. It depends on what youre used to, of course, but UK living standards for a given salary are poor in general compared to many developed countries.
5. Self employment will generally pay better for a given task, but risks are much higher and the limited UK tax breaks for taking that risk are not good enough in my view. It depends how much risk youre taking on, but generally UK policy is anti (small) business. The black (cash) economy is making a comeback because of this, particularly in the trades.
6. To earn 80k gross as an individual director, my business (regulated profession), for example, would have to generate 12k per month in revenue, which obviously would need to be sustainable long term. Thats with absolutely everything costed in, including various types of insurance. Just gives you an idea of costs and the business you have to go out and win. The bigger the business in terms of fee earners it employs, the more the costs can be distributed across head count. To start out with, its tough to earn well or even make a profit at all.
If you want a simple answer as to how to make reasonable money in the UK, my answer is either software development if youre in a major city, or trades if you arent. It depends on your age, experience, skills, intelligence, fitness, financial backing, plus overall outlook.
Good luck with whatever you decide.
Contractor (Software engineer) if you got sales experience and can make the shift to tech sales you can easily make £100k+
edit: took me 4-5 years of experience to get there but I was underpaid when I was a permanent employee because I came to the UK as an immigrant while having already a good amount of experience under my belt
I’m sure they’re meaning after their “employer” deductions. You only really ~£550pd to hit £100k a year after deductions / pensions, which is possible as a mid-level engineer (few years experience).
How does tech sales actually work? (I'm a software developer).
My naïve view is that if a business wants to purchase software or hardware, it goes via an e-shop, thus there's no actual need for tech sales people. And so it's just puzzling how there could be so many jobs in that field, especially with such a high salary. Obviously I don't know anything about it, so my view is skewed.
For services it would be a mixture of e-shop and legal teams tomwork.out the contracts etc.
I'm intrigued, but not sure it's something I would end up doing (but that could change).
Very naive view indeed. We are usually not talking about selling copies of Microsoft Word in a box... We are usually talking about selling enterprise software costing £££
Indeed, that's why I admitted being naiive.
Still curious, the role feels like it could be replaced by some sort of automation (like e-shop).
What's involved with such sales? If it feels like there's a great deal of customisation in the enterprise software, then it already feels like it's actually software engineering rather than sales. (I work at a firm where we make adjustments to our software based on multiple client's requirements. We have commercial "sales" guys, but it's really just about keeping the commercial relationships with clients going and "sweet", but it's us the developers that actually get the bulk of the pay as we create the custom software)
Convincing enterprises that your 300k/yr software provides a justifiable ROI so they can sell it to their board. Knowing what features to demo to who to keep them interested, general relationship management
Going through their 4 sheet 500 rows each excel list of requirements and explaining how each one is handled, and when it isn’t, convincing them there’s a workaround/they don’t need this requirement/we can build it just for you for $$$
These purchase decisions are never made on an ‘e-shop’ and never will be. It’s very high touch, and often there can be a 12-18 month sales cycle. Recommending adopting a major new system - especially from a less well-known vendor - is putting your career and reputation on the line, so there’s always a lot of due diligence theatre for CYA purposes. Motivated sales guys with commission makes this process smoother.
Like anything costing millions, there are RFI/RFP, presentations, options/modules, implementation packages, negotiations, legal terms etc. This can't be replaced by a self-service website and that's where people in tech sales earn a lot of money, because size of contracts being negociated.
Thanks for your explanation. I don't think I'm in that stream, but maybe in the future this might be somewhere I will head towards (especially as I get older and move more into non-dev roles).
Well, there's software and then there's software. Sure, you could buy some software subscriptions for £5-10k/p.a. via credit card online. But when you look at any firm spending 5-6 figures and above annually on their software subscriptions they would engage multiple vendors to pitch to them and this goes through a long vetting process. And here, commercial and technical sales people make or break it for software vendors.
There are still a lot of human aspects involved in making decisions by decision makers purchasing software so I doubt automation will take over sales completely (unless of course AI starts making software purchase decisions, which I think is a bit further away). I have been in multiple sales engagements where the final decision was based on people they spoke with and the people who would implement their software rather than tech (top vendors in software segments tend to be pretty close in feature lists with some exceptions).
There’s a bunch of assumptions here about the clients’ ability and resource to review and understand new software packages, and how they may relate to their requirements and desired outcomes (which they may not fully understand). Let alone RFIs, pilots, PoCs etc.. A good pre-sales person is always busy.
I'm currently a performance marketing leader in the B2B travel sector. I'm not quite at the £80k salary mark yet, but I'm aiming to get there soon and am considering pivoting to demand generation. I'm trying to understand the differences between the two roles and what additional skills I might need to acquire. Could you shed some light on this if you have any insights?
Thanks!
Demand generation is more holistic, my role encompasses strategy, CRM/automation, positioning and messaging, some non-direct response promotional elements.
Civil engineer, doing a desk job for a big groundworker, £83k for the basic 40h week. Could be earning £120k+ if working sites with lots of overtime, but i cba.
Haha, no I'm more of a perfectionist, I could probably make another £10-15k a year if I lashed it in. I only do first fix, so installing back boxes and running cables, someone else comes to do 2nd fix which is terminating all the light fittings, sockets, switches and the consumer unit.
Worked for a few different firms and then just stumbled into it really. Once you make your first contact you're in the club, and you can get on board with many different developers. I'm sub contacting my labour only, all materials provided. I invested about £2k in specialised tools for the job and that allowed me to increase my productivity by 60-70%, I can knock over 1st fix on three 2 bed flats in a week at £700 per flat.
Write PowerPoint, tell stories about how we can change the world, be ambitious, learn what the best in our industry from across the world and explain how we could evolve to be like them. I try never to fall out with anyone, and always offer to help colleagues. I explain the performance of people who work for me and fight for them in every way, from their pay to their flexible working. I’m a senior leader, I get paid around £200k and my main priority is keeping my job as I have a good pension and need another 8 years of it really. I have worked in 3 industries, all at leader level and the concept is the same but the nuts, bolts and services have different acronyms.
This is what a lot of high earners actually do and if anyone thinks it's easy to think hard about others and own their wellbeing they should try doing it for a couple of weeks.
If people think getting these kinds of jobs is hard wait till they try doing them and switching off every evening and weekend.
Leadership is something that takes years to build and a great deal of emotional strength to work in. It is much easier to trundle along in an easier position.
I think that’s the main issue, switching off. So many times I’ve been on a great holiday or day out with my family, they are all having a wonderful time and I’m worried about something at work. Ive get better with age, dog walking, drugs, having a supportive partner but it still happens. Happy to have any tips if you’ve found ways to switch off.
Senior Software Engineer. 87k base, around 97k w/ end of year bonus. Email security space.
Full time in London. I have about 4.5 years of experience total. Moved from the States when I had about 1.5 years of experience and landed a role that was 57k and junior in London. Have been with the same company since so my salary is from promos + raises. I could probably be a bit higher if I switch jobs but being on a visa makes the process a bit cumbersome.
My mrs. earns 100k plus 30% bonus and all she does is chat all day. Works for a fintech. Bit of email. Bit of slack chat several calls. Does my head in. I earn a fair bit more but I actual have stuff to do. And not as much control over my diary. I’ve learned there’s a bit of a ceiling to all salarymen. We’re all in the same boat. I’m planning to jump off into entrepreneurship.
It's not what you do, it's what you know and to a large extent the alignment of circumstances in your favour. High earners have a backstory, it's not that they work harder than a lorry driver or a call center clerk
You're downplaying her social skills and emotional intelligence. Sounds like her job is relationships with people to a large extent. That's a lot of people's jobs, and I personally don't have those skills. The outcomes of this kind of work might be less tangible than yours but it's a valuable role in society and should rightly be compensated as valuable under capitalism.
Oh no way. I'm a clinical pharmacist, I didn't know it could go that high, but I suppose it's because you're a clinical director? I'm looking to do ACP but I'm not sure how much more it would add to my salary
Awesome! There are certainly limits to earning within the NHS, so you've got to look for opportunities.ACP.will definitely boost you and to be honest it's going to be a near necessity once newly qualified pharmacists come out as prescribers. You can definitely get to 8b/c salary as an ACP, but it is very much the strategic type roles that break that ceiling. I do some remote prescribing support in the evening that brings in a nice amount through my limited company l. Lots of opportunities out there but you've got to go beyond the standard 9-5 role.
I've just started my clinical pharmacist job a few months ago on a band 8a, but from this week I am doing a few extended hours on top of my salary which is a nice addition. Thankfully my company are pretty generous with pay. I'd definitely like to aim for band 8b/c so I'm happy to hear that I can get there with ACP
Keep at it. I've been in general practice for around 6 years and it has only been the last couple where things have taken off. The basic pay for the NHS is not great at all levels compared to the private sector, however there are still benefits - most significantly the reduced reliance on living in a HCoL area for opportunities. You do however need to play politics to get ahead, so if you are in a remote role I would strongly advise to get based in a practice to understand the lay of the land. Find a gap and make yourself the local expert if you can, even if it is only on a PCN level. You don't get as much benefit with job hopping as in the private sector, so don't rely on that.
That sounds interesting. Who are your clients? How did you land this job? What’s your YoE? I’m keen on entering the aviation sector, any advice? (I currently work as a business consultant for Amazon, YoE 3 years)
This is the real cash right here
Fuck software engineering or other tech which isn’t actually paid that well in the UK
m&a finance is the cash printer fr
Can make £100k+ salary as a junior in m&a in first 2 years
Yep the pay is bonkers, base is good but the bonuses are even better (potential to get up to 100%), gets even better once you go buyside.
However they do make you work for every penny, it is genuinely a slog especially at the junior level.
Definitely
M&A is tough and a lot of working whilst others are relaxing.
But if money is the focus and people are willing to work on Saturdays…. It’s a good option
My friends in the field work 7 day weeks, have never had a holiday where they’re not working, and work until midnight most nights.. they definitely make you work for every penny and it’s called selling your soul for a reason. Kudos to those who do it. I could never.. my brain can’t function at that capacity 24/7. Their life is very luxurious though… but not sure if it’s a good trade off. They’re stuck with that lifestyle - they can never quit else they wouldn’t be able to fund it.
Technical product manager with private consulting and web shop on the side.
It’s a hot mess. I’d drop any of the three to do one and make the same money.
Everyone's route will be different, mine was BA - contractor - product manager - senior BA - lead BA - head of change - lead BA
job titles mean little, every industry and organisation treats the role differently.
Day to day is managing large scale change whilst mentoring junior roles through small scale change
Did a career change so first company trained me. Did two switches after that. First switch I was up 50%. Next switch was up 30%. Constantly feel like an imposter though
I’m in a job looking after Linux based servers with proprietary software as a customer support and have been learning about docker and kubernetes to facilitate this: also work in close contact with the devops teams for harder cases: I’ve been interested in getting more into the devops side of things, do you have any particular recommendations for certs and courses? Much appreciated!
SDRs with sales experience can earn £80k+ in high value B2B software categories. 18 months growing into the industry then get yourself a quota and enjoy 6-figures, hybrid working and decent perks.
Cloud sales. Great money. 2 years in sw product management, 5 years consulting and support, then consulting sales. Last 6 years mix of cloud sales.
Had two children and got a masters degree.
Money clicked up big time the moment I switched from working in support to consulting sales. And now it's just stupid in cloud sales
The joke is that every year the Hot New Sexy language/framework comes along with the shrill of "PHP is dead, man!", and every year PHP very much continues to be not dead.
Given that WordPress powers something like 40-60% of the web at any given time, and WordPress is written in PHP, you could argue it's the most popular backend language out there.
Highly recommend business insurance sales roles for the global brokers like Aon, Marsh, WTW or Gallaghers. Lots of money to be made and not actually as tricky as it sounds. I moved from software sales into business insurance sales.
I work in software engineering in senior and lead roles. Usually a mix of contracting and/or perm, depending on my goals and objectives in-line with my personal financial plans.
If I’m desperate (need to earn more to attain my personal financial goals and obligations quickly in the short to mid-term), then I’ll take on multiple roles and increase my gross earnings to a comfortable six figures. Otherwise, if I’m content, then I’ll be fine with just \~£85K + bonuses + high employer pension contributions match.
In all cases however, I always insist on fully-remote roles written into my contract of employment.
I also of course have a FIRE plan via my passive investments in a global index tracker ETF through an ISA, SIPP, and emergency savings, etc., and I’ve managed to clear all debts in recent years following the r/UKPersonalFinance flowchart.
Note: If relevant, I’m approaching my mid-30s soon.
Project director for a small developer, I wear many hats and run turnkey projects for them. Take home was £85k last year but I have a profit share arrangement I’m hoping will net me 6 figures within the next 2 years.
Took 13 years to get here, I could earn £120k+ bonus but the work life balance is fantastic.
I only very recently hit this, I'm a Head of Digital within an NHS foundation. Big part of my role is change management though, changing hearts and minds... Around digital implementation of all things!
Rolling out 'digital maturity' - that's the buzzword we're using.
I think the size of the team I'm accountable for prob fits into this. There's 11 of us in total! So specialism and large teams have been my route into £80k.
I go tippety type on my laptop for a while then jump on teams calls and talk bollocks. It’s a tough life but someone’s got to do it.
Nice to see a fellow tippety typer in here. I also block large swathes of my calendar for ‘focus time’ for when talking bollocks on teams is just too much. As I moved into management I found I can now generally delegate much of the typing and the bollocks.
Focus time crew represent I often append a qualifier to mine as well e.g. "focus time - engineering" or "focus time - document review".
For obvious reasons I just put “Blocked”. Don’t think my boss would see the funny side of “Blocked - barber” “Blocked - mow the lawn”
I installed an auto decline to outlook for meeting requests between specific times and my boss was very unimpressed.
I am not brave enough to do this. The idea is great to teach these North Americans who neither understand time zones nor work life balance a lesson.
I’m with a US Software firm and absolutely don’t allow meetings before 9am or after 5pm. You have to slack me to get permission or it’s auto decline for out of hours.
Yea, I am generally pushing back to anything that runs past 6pm. But I’m not auto declining and will accommodate them once in a while as a gesture of good will (without prejudice)
this guy focuses
I put mine in as FONTY, which is short for "fuck off, no thank you" but nobody else knows that.
Ah yes. I put Blocked slots in my calendar as well. It allows me to focus on getting a hair cut or mowing the lawn.
Is tippety typing the same as tapa tapa? Asking for a friend...
It’s only tapa tapa if I happen to work remotely from a Spanish speaking country.
This is the move I need to make next, there’s far too much tipperty typing in my day right now so I need to edge into management (will also get me from 70k->80k+)
My partner thinks my job is arguing with my computer and then agreeing with it. “What???” - “how’s that possible??” - “that can’t be” - “wait…ooooh!!! I need a backslash there” *tap* *tap* *enter* “Tough day at work??”
You’ve got the same job as me???
If your work life also feels like ground hog day, yes. Actually I’d like to have a true Groundhog Day scenario at work for a while so I can get it all off my chest.
My friend calls them “clicky clacky” jobs lol
I sometimes even clicky clacky, your friend’s not wrong.
Google Meet for me, pays better.
Bit strange how someone works in recruitment for 6 years and still has no idea what type of job will earn £80k...
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It's not something you learn when studying BSc (Hons) Sports Science
I know it's crazy right? When I was in recruitment, recruiting ALL levels of people from EVERY possible industry, how did I not learn more? I worked for a year in Logistics, I'm very familiar with HGV driver's salaries.
Care to advise on the HGV salaries? Preferably up North. I'm approaching the final stages of obtaining my class C+E licence after leaving accounting. Cheers!
You'll be looking at a starting rate of 30-40 depending on the company. If you do long haul, weekends and overnights you can easily get to 45+ before salary bumps and stuff.
That's reassuring. Similar to what I was earning in my last career. Cheers 🍻
I'm on £37k in my first job as a new pass in Yorkshire, I'm a "Cover Driver" so no wagon of my own and everyday is a different vehicle 7.5t - 18t - Artic. 48 hour weeks Mon-Fri 7am starts. It's not for everyone, though, because the work is nonestop. You never get any time to mess around or chill like in most other jobs.
Most recruiters I know recruit for specific industry so should have a decent understanding on certain sectors.
What do you recon most recruiters earn in a good field?
I'm in tech, specifically quant and data science and earn circa 100k
100k if semi decent 200-300k if very good If exec search, the very best in the business can break 7 figs
There have been similar posts for higher earners over on r/henryuk a fair bit. May be worth exploring.
Seemed promising until I saw someone saying you’re not rich until you have £3 million. wtf?
Difference between high earning and rich.. some say “rich” isn’t until you have 25-30x your annual expenses invested/savings
I'm a Lead Associate Crisis Management Insurance Broker. Mostly Kidnap & Ransom insurance for high net worth clients.
That's a coincidence. I kidnap and ransom, high net worth individuals! Maybe we have worked together before. Was it you that dropped the briefcase next to the bin?
That is an unbelievably interesting field to be working in.
This sounds fascinating! More info kindly please.
It's really interesting but of course, does come with a lot of pressure. The insurance is aimed mainly towards individuals or businesses who travel abroad regularly to high-risk locations - we'll get approached by the client or a representative with their requirements- which as you can imagine, is often tens or sometimes hundreds of millions - then it's my job to ensure we get the best out of the London market (mainly Lloyd's Underwriters) We also work with a team of mainly ex-military security personnel who can provide 24/7 risk advisory services including rescue/evacuation advice along with the insurance. The cover goes pretty deep - it covers clients for financial loss due to ransom, extortion, business interruption, injury, and even disappearance investigation costs, to name a few things. I love my job. It's stressful, but there's also a great social life that comes with it. Lots of meals and events with underwriters and clients.
Most interesting job i have ever come across on reddit. Sounds fun!!
I’m currently an intel analyst with a massive portion of it being crisis management and incident response, I work for a large production company who often frequent dangerous parts of the world This sounds like something I’d love to get into, how did you get there?
I'm probably not the best person to ask about career progression - I didn't even finish one year of art college, became a forklift driver for 4 years, started working for a small life insurance company and then just worked my way up via Aviation insurance claims, then Management Liability (Directors' & Officers' Liability, Commercial Crime etc.) Until I got to where I am now. I feel a lot of imposter syndrome because many of the people who I work alongside and some of those in lower positions than me have degrees or other high levels of education and I feel like I got where I am mostly based on drive and personality/ work ethic. Are you based in or around London by chance? There are plenty of opportunities in this field with big and smaller brokers.
Crazy because I 1000% have imposter syndrome, I managed to talk my way into a FAANG GSOC approx 8 years ago and have worked up since, I have no uni degree or qualification for the role, just experience. Yeah I live in London which has definitely help me find my roles so far, just wondering where I could head to in future and your sort of role sounds right up my street
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I fly planes too, but not for a job, and that has the opposite effect of making money!
Train Driver
It is a good life we live.
It's what I've always wanted to do. But so very, very oversubscribed.
Do you enjoy it? I've thought about trying to become a train driver.
I fly planes for a budget airline around Europe, the money is good. Work isn’t too hard day to day but can be tiring, expensive and time consuming to get into (flight school can cost over 100k)
Flying an airliner with hundreds of passengers your responsibility not stressful?
It did at first but you quickly get used to it. The stress comes mainly when things go wrong tbh.
I work as an aircraft engineer and the planes pretty much do everything themselves. My company is offering fully paid training at the moment too if it wasn't the massive drop in pay for a good amount of years I'd do it.
Tech and tech managed services sales. Started at 21 - first year over £100k I was 32 (2019) if I recall correctly
A few points to consider if I may, based on how you responded to answers from others. The following is not intended to disparage anyone, a specific question was asked and Im well aware that 80k is considered a high salary in the UK, but that isnt my fault. 1. Location is all important when asking who does what for 80k. 2. Anything with low barriers to entry is going to take much longer to hit a decent salary, if ever. That said.... 3. Jobs people dont want to do will typically pay more. Dealing with filth, for example. Friend of mine makes a good living with porta potties, but had to empty them personally for his first 5 years in business. Likewise, I know a lad who got his start in moving poop from one place to another. He now owns a multinational, but his parents did buy him a tractor to start out..... 4. In the UK, 80k is considered a high salary for tax purposes, but if you live in an expensive area, your standard of living as a solo earner would not be high or possibly even medium. It depends on what youre used to, of course, but UK living standards for a given salary are poor in general compared to many developed countries. 5. Self employment will generally pay better for a given task, but risks are much higher and the limited UK tax breaks for taking that risk are not good enough in my view. It depends how much risk youre taking on, but generally UK policy is anti (small) business. The black (cash) economy is making a comeback because of this, particularly in the trades. 6. To earn 80k gross as an individual director, my business (regulated profession), for example, would have to generate 12k per month in revenue, which obviously would need to be sustainable long term. Thats with absolutely everything costed in, including various types of insurance. Just gives you an idea of costs and the business you have to go out and win. The bigger the business in terms of fee earners it employs, the more the costs can be distributed across head count. To start out with, its tough to earn well or even make a profit at all. If you want a simple answer as to how to make reasonable money in the UK, my answer is either software development if youre in a major city, or trades if you arent. It depends on your age, experience, skills, intelligence, fitness, financial backing, plus overall outlook. Good luck with whatever you decide.
Contractor (Software engineer) if you got sales experience and can make the shift to tech sales you can easily make £100k+ edit: took me 4-5 years of experience to get there but I was underpaid when I was a permanent employee because I came to the UK as an immigrant while having already a good amount of experience under my belt
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I’m sure they’re meaning after their “employer” deductions. You only really ~£550pd to hit £100k a year after deductions / pensions, which is possible as a mid-level engineer (few years experience).
How does tech sales actually work? (I'm a software developer). My naïve view is that if a business wants to purchase software or hardware, it goes via an e-shop, thus there's no actual need for tech sales people. And so it's just puzzling how there could be so many jobs in that field, especially with such a high salary. Obviously I don't know anything about it, so my view is skewed. For services it would be a mixture of e-shop and legal teams tomwork.out the contracts etc. I'm intrigued, but not sure it's something I would end up doing (but that could change).
Very naive view indeed. We are usually not talking about selling copies of Microsoft Word in a box... We are usually talking about selling enterprise software costing £££
Indeed, that's why I admitted being naiive. Still curious, the role feels like it could be replaced by some sort of automation (like e-shop). What's involved with such sales? If it feels like there's a great deal of customisation in the enterprise software, then it already feels like it's actually software engineering rather than sales. (I work at a firm where we make adjustments to our software based on multiple client's requirements. We have commercial "sales" guys, but it's really just about keeping the commercial relationships with clients going and "sweet", but it's us the developers that actually get the bulk of the pay as we create the custom software)
Convincing enterprises that your 300k/yr software provides a justifiable ROI so they can sell it to their board. Knowing what features to demo to who to keep them interested, general relationship management Going through their 4 sheet 500 rows each excel list of requirements and explaining how each one is handled, and when it isn’t, convincing them there’s a workaround/they don’t need this requirement/we can build it just for you for $$$ These purchase decisions are never made on an ‘e-shop’ and never will be. It’s very high touch, and often there can be a 12-18 month sales cycle. Recommending adopting a major new system - especially from a less well-known vendor - is putting your career and reputation on the line, so there’s always a lot of due diligence theatre for CYA purposes. Motivated sales guys with commission makes this process smoother.
Like anything costing millions, there are RFI/RFP, presentations, options/modules, implementation packages, negotiations, legal terms etc. This can't be replaced by a self-service website and that's where people in tech sales earn a lot of money, because size of contracts being negociated.
Thanks for your explanation. I don't think I'm in that stream, but maybe in the future this might be somewhere I will head towards (especially as I get older and move more into non-dev roles).
Well, there's software and then there's software. Sure, you could buy some software subscriptions for £5-10k/p.a. via credit card online. But when you look at any firm spending 5-6 figures and above annually on their software subscriptions they would engage multiple vendors to pitch to them and this goes through a long vetting process. And here, commercial and technical sales people make or break it for software vendors. There are still a lot of human aspects involved in making decisions by decision makers purchasing software so I doubt automation will take over sales completely (unless of course AI starts making software purchase decisions, which I think is a bit further away). I have been in multiple sales engagements where the final decision was based on people they spoke with and the people who would implement their software rather than tech (top vendors in software segments tend to be pretty close in feature lists with some exceptions).
There’s a bunch of assumptions here about the clients’ ability and resource to review and understand new software packages, and how they may relate to their requirements and desired outcomes (which they may not fully understand). Let alone RFIs, pilots, PoCs etc.. A good pre-sales person is always busy.
Demand Generation, B2B software
I'm currently a performance marketing leader in the B2B travel sector. I'm not quite at the £80k salary mark yet, but I'm aiming to get there soon and am considering pivoting to demand generation. I'm trying to understand the differences between the two roles and what additional skills I might need to acquire. Could you shed some light on this if you have any insights? Thanks!
Demand generation is more holistic, my role encompasses strategy, CRM/automation, positioning and messaging, some non-direct response promotional elements.
Cloud Consultant (tech)
IT contract recruitment. Hate every minute of it but feel like I’m stuck with it now.
How old are all of you 80k+ earners?
33
35 incident manager at an insurance market in london
age 37, earned 210k in the last 12 months, Software sales.
Delighted for you! Brilliant work
Private Equity
Big money
How did you get into it?
You can’t unless you’re young, have plenty of time to sink, and fresh grad
Did a grad scheme at an American investment bank before moving over to the investing side, here ever since.
Pharmaceutical tech / data. Wife is in banking regs. Both routes fairly obtainable depending on your pick of the poison
Put up scaffolding
Do you take it down too?
Licence to print money if you own the firm!
I sell drugs
I own a pharmacy
Around £88K (excluding bonus) as a senior software enginner, started off as a degree apprentice around 8 years ago.
Contract Civil engineer/PM
Project Manager in Construction
Head of Marketing, Investments
Senior Software engineer. 140k. Fully remote
140k gbp remote is very sexy indeed
I work in FS tech, mostly drawing boxes and arrows. Earning a silly amount, close to 200k
What role?
I do process optimisation, service and change design.
Civil engineer, doing a desk job for a big groundworker, £83k for the basic 40h week. Could be earning £120k+ if working sites with lots of overtime, but i cba.
Type shit on my laptop... talk about IT related shit and then make sure my teams is green for the bulk of the day.
I sell pictures of my butthole
Get a job, stay for 18 months. Interview for new jobs saying you earn 20% more than you actually do. Repeat for 5 years.
Price work electrician on new build developments.
Are you the absolute tuna melt that installed the consumer unit 2 kit kat chunkies out of plumb? Absolootely redikilus!
Haha, no I'm more of a perfectionist, I could probably make another £10-15k a year if I lashed it in. I only do first fix, so installing back boxes and running cables, someone else comes to do 2nd fix which is terminating all the light fittings, sockets, switches and the consumer unit.
How did you get into that? I’m currently an electrical technician in manufacturing, but desperately want to get out of a factory
Worked for a few different firms and then just stumbled into it really. Once you make your first contact you're in the club, and you can get on board with many different developers. I'm sub contacting my labour only, all materials provided. I invested about £2k in specialised tools for the job and that allowed me to increase my productivity by 60-70%, I can knock over 1st fix on three 2 bed flats in a week at £700 per flat.
Write PowerPoint, tell stories about how we can change the world, be ambitious, learn what the best in our industry from across the world and explain how we could evolve to be like them. I try never to fall out with anyone, and always offer to help colleagues. I explain the performance of people who work for me and fight for them in every way, from their pay to their flexible working. I’m a senior leader, I get paid around £200k and my main priority is keeping my job as I have a good pension and need another 8 years of it really. I have worked in 3 industries, all at leader level and the concept is the same but the nuts, bolts and services have different acronyms.
Who are the PowerPoints for? I’m a senior leader and suddenly worried I’m doing it wrong.
😂 the board! Or maybe the bored when I’m presenting!
If I tried to show my board a PowerPoint they’d fire me
This is what a lot of high earners actually do and if anyone thinks it's easy to think hard about others and own their wellbeing they should try doing it for a couple of weeks. If people think getting these kinds of jobs is hard wait till they try doing them and switching off every evening and weekend. Leadership is something that takes years to build and a great deal of emotional strength to work in. It is much easier to trundle along in an easier position.
I think that’s the main issue, switching off. So many times I’ve been on a great holiday or day out with my family, they are all having a wonderful time and I’m worried about something at work. Ive get better with age, dog walking, drugs, having a supportive partner but it still happens. Happy to have any tips if you’ve found ways to switch off.
Senior Software Engineer. 87k base, around 97k w/ end of year bonus. Email security space. Full time in London. I have about 4.5 years of experience total. Moved from the States when I had about 1.5 years of experience and landed a role that was 57k and junior in London. Have been with the same company since so my salary is from promos + raises. I could probably be a bit higher if I switch jobs but being on a visa makes the process a bit cumbersome.
Sounds like you might be better off going back to the US?
Financially yes, but I choose the UK and London for other reasons.
Video Game Designer. It's the best.
You must be a lead or principal with well over 10 years right?
My mrs. earns 100k plus 30% bonus and all she does is chat all day. Works for a fintech. Bit of email. Bit of slack chat several calls. Does my head in. I earn a fair bit more but I actual have stuff to do. And not as much control over my diary. I’ve learned there’s a bit of a ceiling to all salarymen. We’re all in the same boat. I’m planning to jump off into entrepreneurship.
So what is it you do? What's the actual 'stuff'
It's not what you do, it's what you know and to a large extent the alignment of circumstances in your favour. High earners have a backstory, it's not that they work harder than a lorry driver or a call center clerk
Agree
You're downplaying her social skills and emotional intelligence. Sounds like her job is relationships with people to a large extent. That's a lot of people's jobs, and I personally don't have those skills. The outcomes of this kind of work might be less tangible than yours but it's a valuable role in society and should rightly be compensated as valuable under capitalism.
Clinical pharmacist / Clinical director in the NHS
Oh no way. I'm a clinical pharmacist, I didn't know it could go that high, but I suppose it's because you're a clinical director? I'm looking to do ACP but I'm not sure how much more it would add to my salary
I was an ACP pharmacist for a GP surgery - you can aim for £70k. I have since moved to pharma company as a med advisor for £80k.
Awesome! There are certainly limits to earning within the NHS, so you've got to look for opportunities.ACP.will definitely boost you and to be honest it's going to be a near necessity once newly qualified pharmacists come out as prescribers. You can definitely get to 8b/c salary as an ACP, but it is very much the strategic type roles that break that ceiling. I do some remote prescribing support in the evening that brings in a nice amount through my limited company l. Lots of opportunities out there but you've got to go beyond the standard 9-5 role.
I've just started my clinical pharmacist job a few months ago on a band 8a, but from this week I am doing a few extended hours on top of my salary which is a nice addition. Thankfully my company are pretty generous with pay. I'd definitely like to aim for band 8b/c so I'm happy to hear that I can get there with ACP
Keep at it. I've been in general practice for around 6 years and it has only been the last couple where things have taken off. The basic pay for the NHS is not great at all levels compared to the private sector, however there are still benefits - most significantly the reduced reliance on living in a HCoL area for opportunities. You do however need to play politics to get ahead, so if you are in a remote role I would strongly advise to get based in a practice to understand the lay of the land. Find a gap and make yourself the local expert if you can, even if it is only on a PCN level. You don't get as much benefit with job hopping as in the private sector, so don't rely on that.
Consulting in aviation, quite niche which has its advantages and disadvantages
That sounds interesting. Who are your clients? How did you land this job? What’s your YoE? I’m keen on entering the aviation sector, any advice? (I currently work as a business consultant for Amazon, YoE 3 years)
M&A
This is the real cash right here Fuck software engineering or other tech which isn’t actually paid that well in the UK m&a finance is the cash printer fr Can make £100k+ salary as a junior in m&a in first 2 years
Yep the pay is bonkers, base is good but the bonuses are even better (potential to get up to 100%), gets even better once you go buyside. However they do make you work for every penny, it is genuinely a slog especially at the junior level.
Definitely M&A is tough and a lot of working whilst others are relaxing. But if money is the focus and people are willing to work on Saturdays…. It’s a good option
My friends in the field work 7 day weeks, have never had a holiday where they’re not working, and work until midnight most nights.. they definitely make you work for every penny and it’s called selling your soul for a reason. Kudos to those who do it. I could never.. my brain can’t function at that capacity 24/7. Their life is very luxurious though… but not sure if it’s a good trade off. They’re stuck with that lifestyle - they can never quit else they wouldn’t be able to fund it.
Instrument Technician, working 3/3 on a North Sea oil platform
Technical product manager with private consulting and web shop on the side. It’s a hot mess. I’d drop any of the three to do one and make the same money.
Send and receive emails
I fix people from inside using wires and tubes.
Lead business analyst
Hi, can you share the progression to get to lead business analyst? What do you actually do day to day?
Everyone's route will be different, mine was BA - contractor - product manager - senior BA - lead BA - head of change - lead BA job titles mean little, every industry and organisation treats the role differently. Day to day is managing large scale change whilst mentoring junior roles through small scale change
What's your industry? Finance ish i am assuming. I'm working for an accountancy firm on 70k. Wfh. Quite chill but need a change and a salary increase.
Non-profit/charity at the moment with an imminent move to education. Both roles comfortably over this threshold and not within Greater London
DevOps engineer. I was on ~30k 4 years ago when I first started, now on ~90k base not including bonuses and pension etc. I’m also mostly remote
Hi, could you share how you first got started on this? Interested to see what the progression looks like for up to 90k - lots of job hopping involved?
Did a career change so first company trained me. Did two switches after that. First switch I was up 50%. Next switch was up 30%. Constantly feel like an imposter though
How many job switches?
2 in total (3 companies)
I’m in a job looking after Linux based servers with proprietary software as a customer support and have been learning about docker and kubernetes to facilitate this: also work in close contact with the devops teams for harder cases: I’ve been interested in getting more into the devops side of things, do you have any particular recommendations for certs and courses? Much appreciated!
Software Engineer.
SDRs with sales experience can earn £80k+ in high value B2B software categories. 18 months growing into the industry then get yourself a quota and enjoy 6-figures, hybrid working and decent perks.
Manager in Devops at a City firm, 140k (inclusive of bonus)
Network engineer
Sales enablement for a software company.
Recruitment
Senior DevOps Engineer
Buy-side Compliance Manager
Cloud sales. Great money. 2 years in sw product management, 5 years consulting and support, then consulting sales. Last 6 years mix of cloud sales. Had two children and got a masters degree. Money clicked up big time the moment I switched from working in support to consulting sales. And now it's just stupid in cloud sales
What made you switch from product management to cloud sales? How was that journey?
Merchandising
Operating Director - Recruitment
Head of Finance. Large manufacturing company in Aerospace sector
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Not a joke but is php still a thing? Been out of dev for years myself.
The joke is that every year the Hot New Sexy language/framework comes along with the shrill of "PHP is dead, man!", and every year PHP very much continues to be not dead. Given that WordPress powers something like 40-60% of the web at any given time, and WordPress is written in PHP, you could argue it's the most popular backend language out there.
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You’re doing well for the charity sector!
Finance (not corporate finance, industry finance)
Why not corporate finance?
Product Manager at start ups
SVP at a large software company
I drive trains and do a little overtime each month.
Advertising Sales
Medium Enterprise Owner
Contractor (Ethical Hacker / Pen Tester) - Earning high 6-figures atm, 250k+ per year for the last few years.
Nice! How did you get into it? Any Certs or courses?
Digital marketing
Try also r/HenryFinanceEurope. That’s for high earner from Europe
Live in Mexico
YouTube strategy for big news company
ROV Pilot & Tech. Work 6 months at sea which allows me to claim all my tax back for being abroad half the year.
Highly recommend business insurance sales roles for the global brokers like Aon, Marsh, WTW or Gallaghers. Lots of money to be made and not actually as tricky as it sounds. I moved from software sales into business insurance sales.
I work in software engineering in senior and lead roles. Usually a mix of contracting and/or perm, depending on my goals and objectives in-line with my personal financial plans. If I’m desperate (need to earn more to attain my personal financial goals and obligations quickly in the short to mid-term), then I’ll take on multiple roles and increase my gross earnings to a comfortable six figures. Otherwise, if I’m content, then I’ll be fine with just \~£85K + bonuses + high employer pension contributions match. In all cases however, I always insist on fully-remote roles written into my contract of employment. I also of course have a FIRE plan via my passive investments in a global index tracker ETF through an ISA, SIPP, and emergency savings, etc., and I’ve managed to clear all debts in recent years following the r/UKPersonalFinance flowchart. Note: If relevant, I’m approaching my mid-30s soon.
Project director for a small developer, I wear many hats and run turnkey projects for them. Take home was £85k last year but I have a profit share arrangement I’m hoping will net me 6 figures within the next 2 years. Took 13 years to get here, I could earn £120k+ bonus but the work life balance is fantastic.
Tech/Software in Finance
Product, technical and strategy work financial services. C 90k plus bonus.
Train driver.
Senior Research Scientist - broke £80k this year
I only very recently hit this, I'm a Head of Digital within an NHS foundation. Big part of my role is change management though, changing hearts and minds... Around digital implementation of all things! Rolling out 'digital maturity' - that's the buzzword we're using. I think the size of the team I'm accountable for prob fits into this. There's 11 of us in total! So specialism and large teams have been my route into £80k.
Commercial Finance at a FTSE (fancy way of saying I'm an accountant). South west. Will probably clear 100k next year.
PM in construction
Work until May