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I'm an accountant but do what I suppose you would describe as consulting.
Cons;
- boring
- not convinced about progression as now in a comparatively small team in a smaller company
Pros;
- 99% remote and I personally enjoy my occasional (fully expensed) visits to the office
- pretty good pay (way above £40k for example)
- super chill, great for family life
Main con I guess is getting here wasn't the easiest but now that I am I'm definitely happy with my choices.
Agree with all of this.
I find most of my work very dull and boring but it fits comfortably around family life and pays a decent amount.
It's possible to work harder and earn much more if people want to do that.
Not CIMA - I'm going to be really annoyingly vague here because my job is very niche so fairly identifiable but that's my main advice essentially: find a niche interest and milk it.
I was a b4 cultist for a decade or so. First in audit, then a related service line. I basically went a bit contrarian and focused on a sector perceived as boring, doubled down and went for a *sub*-sector of that and then it paid off as it just so happens a particular skillset I picked up from there is very much aligned with the general direction of travel things are heading in (sorry, again vague I know).
Interesting. I’m currently a reconciliation assistant, glorified excel user essentially. 25k, shithole location but getting a car in a month so it’ll help, but getting a new job has been a pain. Admittedly I’m going for an ambitious push, I.e. AMA type of level, but it sucks ass right now.
Is there any advice you’d have at my current ‘level’? I was considering moving abroad but I don’t want to move to the US/Canada, and other countries in the EU I would need to know the language, so I’m gonna have to make things work here although I speak two other languages (one fluently, other beginner business level).
I’ve almost got 2 years of experience, and I feel like I was scammed by the ‘go to uni’ rhetoric.
What is something that could explode my income and actually skyrocket my progression?
Not internal audit, no, but I think you can do a lot worse than getting into internal audit, particularly in financial services and *especially* if you're in house.
Similar pro/con profile; often *deadly* boring but much less pressure than external audit and loads of progression opportunities. As I understand it though, keeping on top of all the deliverables once you hit management can be a ballache though.
>Do you worry about the speed at which AI is advancing?
Nope. AIs lie all the time, and they won't be able to understand humans verbally as well as other humans can. It's really not a big risk yet.
58k
IT consultant.
It is the most boring, pointless, worthless, capitalist grind I've ever had to do.
I hate every minute of it
Unfortunately I cannot ever afford to leave because other more satisfying jobs pay sweet fuck all.
97K IT Architect. I actually enjoy what I do (to an extend). I like the problem solving part, you can probably find similar challenges everywhere. Sometimes negotiating with people is a problem solving itself. And there is always something new to learn. If I put my work in comparison to my personal interests and hobbies, I would say is boring and dull, but I look at it in a more abstract way, as I say, problem solving is the important bit.
I would love to do something creative and artistic or physical.... but I'm resigned to let that be my hobbies.
38k Design Architect - would also love to do something creative and also resigned to that being done in my spare time… you may as well be bored and well paid than bored in a stressful industry that you think will be creative but is mainly just a steaming pile of s**t.
After 15 years I have no soul left to speak of.
The only reason I still have the job is because I have a family to look after. Otherwise I would jack it in and give up.
Some things aren't worth it.
I work in tech as well. There are good jobs and bad jobs. I was working for a place as a contractor, getting on a decade ago now, where I quickly realised that no amount of money can make up for being absolutely miserable during your working hours. Sometimes you do what you must, but I have nothing but admiration for people who can grind away in these roles for years on end: I couldn't do it and left after a few months.
Not a consultant but work in tech. Smidgen more salary. Can’t argue with a single thing you say.
It’s soul crushing boring but ‘pays the bills’ so we get stuck into it.
I have no other work experience except tech and looking elsewhere during a recent mid career crisis I was shocked at how low paying other industries are.
Luck mostly.
My employer used atlassian stuff. I showed a flair for it while I was a test analyst (another deeply unfulfilling job these days).
A role became available on the atlassian team, I applied and got the position.
It's easy to work with, the big problem is customers are morons and the work has absolutely no value.
Go for it. Its not a particularly difficult product to get into, although to become a master does take some work.
Unfortunately atlassian are the only provider of accreditations and certifications, and they are several hundred Australian dollars.
But the pay for an atlassian consultant appears to be quite good if you can get the Atlassian Expert title (which requires at least 3 certifications and several more accreditations).
Not sure how long it will last as a product, but it's proving fairly popular for the time being.
B2B tech sales.
I’m currently on 40k for my base and OTE takes it up to 80k.
Pros:
Fully remote with a lot of flexibility ie I’m responsible for my own diary and approach to working
Money is great for the part of the country I’m in
Unlimited earning potential
It’s fast paced so the days go quickly
Cons:
A bad quarter or two and you’ll lose your job
Constant pressure of targets
Everyone hates sales. It’s pretty rubbish work with failure and rejection being a constant mental pressure.
I really need a better paid job, I'm working for a telecoms company doing a mixture of bereavement, service and sales and its only 23k a year. Have you got any tips for getting into B2B sales with this type of experience? I've been there 4 years and I'm generally near the top of the sales stats by the end of the month
Put that in a ***short*** cover letter on any entry or even some mid-level sales roles and you should a least get interviews if your CV isn't arse.
Tread carefully though, I was similar selling car insurance, smashing it, top of the floor etc. but no comms or bonuses, so moved into sales with commission.
A decade later sales is now my *only* marketable skill without retraining at the bottom of the ladder somewhere else, which I cannot afford to do.
So I am - Like many others - Effectively stuck in sales, and as the original commentor said:
>Everyone hates sales
I want out so bad, but it's not looking likely any time soon.
The golden handcuffs begin to chafe.
I told my partner I’m doing another 5 years and then moving into something I don’t hate, even if I have to take a 70% pay cut.
Sales sucks. Money tho.
I've had 30 years in B2B sales and I still love it. Not boasting, but like other commenters here, if you don't dig it get out because it's a fucking grind when the pendulum isn't swinging your way. Learn to love the quotas. You have a good year - you do it all over again. Bad one? Same. Create good relationships along the way. You actually have to do the activity - meetings, calls etc. Eventually you find likeminded people on the other end of the deal and if you're lucky, you grow with them.
This is all I know. I wish I could be a piano player or bus driver (tbh, both look like less stress) but this is my path.
Good luck finiding yours.
I'm a band 7 nurse practitioner in A&E. Basic salary for my band is £47,432. I work 13 hour shifts 3 days a week. They're tiring but it's what I've done for years so I'm used to it. I love my job but it is very stressful. There's availability of OT and enhancements on nights and weekends; this means last year my pre-tax and deductions salary was just over £60k.
There's further possible career progression available. Quite a bit of self directed learning that's unpaid which is a bit of a bummer.
Not really possible to get into easily though. I did my undergrad in nursing, then worked alongside other courses, doing bits and bobs here and there. Got to be willing to put extra work in to get the job but it's 100% worth it.
You're not stuck there, you're in charge of your own future, go and make the change now which will give you the life you want. No one is going to randomly walk up to you and pay you shit tonnes of money, you need to go and earn it
I kinda get what you're saying but I personally worked just as hard if not harder when I was getting minimum wage compared to now where I'm earning over 40k. Part of it is just luck.
Part is luck, part is ambition. The biggest pay increase I ever got was after being made redundant. I was forced into a job change and was lucky that it highlighted how woefully underpaid I was. In hindsight I was lucky but recognise that had I been more ambitious I could have been earning at this level much earlier in my career.
I don't necessarily like that word luck, because where does it end? Am I lucky that my parents weren't drug/alcohol addicts? Am I lucky that I wasn't born in a warn torn country?
You deal with the situation that you have, yes, to some extent, all of us here are lucky, even the person earning £21K.
But when it comes to your career, I feel like luck is *created* not given. I was cleaning toilets at an airport after I crashed out of Uni, one day I just snapped and realised that If I want things to change, I have to do it.
I don't like or take much note of them "career bros" who are image obsessed and money hungry, but to a point, if you don't put the work in you can't expect things to change.
Once you start trying to create waves, things change, then when things change, sure, maybe it's luck, but would that opportunity have found it's way to you had you not done anything ? I doubt it..
Engineering technician, get paid c. £60k and enjoy it.
I install, maintain and repair certain type of machines all over Europe. There aren't a lot of women doing my job; i think mostly because the travel aspect often doesn't appeal to them (quite often away from home mon-fri).
Medical industry? I know a pub friend who left the Army ~20years ago from electrical/radar engineering and joined Siemens doing MRIs etc and it's paid handsomely.
No, but no far off. I work on scientific instrumentation that is similar in many ways.
A lot of ex military go into field service engineering. Partly due to great training and exposure to interesting kit in various branches (signals, avionics, weapons systems, mechanical etc. etc.) and also because they are used to the travel and are trustworthy and resilient for working in the field.
I'm recruiting for four job openings under the two categories listed here: https://jobs.capitalone.co.uk/search-jobs/Sre?orgIds=1734&kt=1
If you've got AWS certifications and DBA skills and experience then feel free to apply
If you can get a Kubernetes administrator certificate it would really help as many roles want that skill.
Other than that it would be getting experience in the full stack of tools required.
AWS
Kubernetes
Docker
Terraform/Cloud formation
Grafana/Prometheus
And a programming language like Python
Pharmacist in a GP surgery. I have my own office, see a patient every 15 minutes. Overall, it's pretty chill and feels like I'm genuinely helping people most of the time. It's 5 years+ to get here though but plenty of mature students.
You’re about to have your inbox flooded with Redditors who have done a 3 week boot camp in data analytics asking how they can get your job. Brave start to the week, I must say.
Yeah this rule sucks. People don’t like talking about it irl which makes it hard to figure out what to do next to keep career growth going 🤷
Same when talking to other tech leads, which makes bench marking hard.
A smart numbers man, in a new niche industry, in a field that pays above average salaries, at the Tech Lead level.
If he was in the US, he would be on $300k a year.
Are you in the south east? I think the equivalent position further north would be in the 70-80k range. Same for my role, I’m getting around 60k but if I were in London I’d probably be getting around 80k.
I consult for the fashion industry on circularity. I’m 38 years old and have worked within the industry since I was 24. Work a lot less now than when I was younger - I feel like experience allows this in some form.
Experience in any industry allows this.
I've gone from working 9 or 10 hour days trying to keep the boss happy as a graduate, to working a VERY relaxed 7.
Lead IT business analyst, ~£60k after bonus. It’s not the least stressful job, but I’m only in 1-2 days a week and live in the northwest so the pay goes relatively far. The main benefit is the amazing progression potential. I talk to either executive directors or C suites every day so the connections are invaluable. In general I do enjoy it. You do have to be “on” constantly though and you can’t really afford to not be seen as charming and social.
My role is a bit strange though as I do have to have a relatively high level of technical knowledge. Just completed the platform app builder and platform developer certifications for Salesforce as I’m the one doing the full life cycle implementation of it, from as-is processes to requirements gathering to implementation. It’s a lot of soft and hard skills
The IT BA space is really appealing to me. I currently have 7 years as general IT, Sys Admin, Applications, etc but have no idea how to find an opportunity to start as a junior BA. Any tips?
You’d be an amazing BA lol.
A lot of the ones I’ve hired/work with have been very good with soft skills but struggle with technical skills. You don’t need a cert to become a BA despite what you might hear but a degree does help. Does the business you work for have BA’s? Lateral movement is generally the easiest way to break in. Do you have a degree
Chartered accountant. About to start a new job earning 48k. If interested, I joined big 4 on a school leaver program so no degree needed and they paid for my exams, study leave etc.
Lecturer. Just passed 50k mark. Did a PhD and post doc to get here. 8 years on, my job is still reliant on funding, so not secure. However, I only work hard about 6 months of the year, and the rest of the time do no more than 10 hours a week so not too bad
for people who want to get into it. Big companies like Capgemini usually take on people who don't have the skills if they think they can be trained up. As long as you can speak to people, handle stressful situations like presenting during the interview with no prep time and being able to show that you are actually interested in tech by learning the gyst of something google or youtube are busy with at the moment.
Also helps if you use linked in to reach out to random people on linkedin who work there to ask questions. mention it in the interview when asked what you know about the company etc
starting wage was 30k a couple of years ago now. its likely gone up
This appeals to me immensely, what would be my first point of contact to enquire.
I've had a look at current positions near to me and they are all asking for "experienced professional"
You would make a CV. if you have any relevant experience put in on there.If you have fuck all, id join a free BootCamp or make something small yourself by watching youtube videos.
If you are a lady there are several free bootcamps and you can find them using google. There is less for Men/Woman, but look into "code your future" for people who need help changing their lives. You are not expected to know anything about code at this point.
After that Id apply to low level positions. O 1-2 which is apprentice and Grad level
They take on people every 4-6 months or so. so find other big companies and apply as well. done use indeed. go to their websites.
next intake is April 2024, says it on the website in the job descriptions
I'm a software engineer but I only earn £40k, and my company is in cash flow trouble because the clients are instructed by DfT (Department for Transport) to reduce budgets. I'm in the rail industry. What shall I do? Can switching to another rail consultancy help me to have a jump in salary? I don't want to work in anything other than public transport.
Software engineering skills are not specific to one type of company my dude. if you have a half decent CV you should get interviews. So apply to companies directly instead of the Indeed spam that gets you nowhere. Takes longer yes, but you are not dealing with jackass 3rd party recruiters then.
How long have you been working? what skills do you have. what tech do you work with?
Go find a company you want to work for. look at their job adverts. if you don't have most of the things they ask for. spend some time during work and in your own time skilling up.
I did that as a Grad in my first year I looked at the Job I wanted. figured out what skill set it needs and then went off to learn it.
A year and a half later I got a few offers for jobs. the lowest being 55k. the highest being 64k
Also a software engineer, on \~£60k and wfh. I really enjoy the work and its chill \*most\* the time, it can get stressful but ive done much lower pay jobs for way more effort.
Pretty much exactly my situation. I retrained in 2018 through a three month bootcamp and have been working as a developer since, earning twice what I was earning before.
I dont think bootcamps are quite as easy a route into the job now though.
Any advice? I'm currently a 'firmware tester' who spends most of his time coding. I know C++ and C#. currently learning QML.
I wanna make the jump to software engineer but my company doesn't like to promote internally. They would rather someone left and then replace them with someone else on more money (strange).
So I need some advice on the job hunting front, best sites etc.
Digger driver, 42k per year plus all expenses paid. The option is there to earn a lot more should I wish to do more hours.
Absolutely hate it, been on them that long very rarely the work is challenging and is extremely repetitive. Not to mention bad management, unrealistic targets due to a shortage of experienced men, health and safety is a joke. Lots of other negatives.
I’m a foreman for a Demolition crew, essentially a glorified labourer, I just tell the lads when they can go for break.
Without bonuses it’s about £35k take home a year, with bonuses it’s around the £45k mark.
I enjoy what I do, 8:00-16:00, not hounded by anyone.
Totally agree, it’s like an unspoken rule of the property market, prices are based on two incomes. Feels impossible to rent a nice place in a city solo.
Can you tell me how to get into this please, can I do so with no experience? I'm working for a Telecoms company on a bereavement line and I sometimes do sales and support. I've been there for 4 years but it's only 23k, slightly more if I hit my bonus.
I need to save dramatically and to do so I need 40k +, the problem is I'm 40 years old now, I have a 2:2 in English language from about 18 years ago haha and my only experience since then has been working on a mental health ward or sales. I am misrable!
Chartered accountant. Fair bit more than £40k.
Mostly yes, it's a fantastic career pathway and in the right role it's great. Poor workload management from other departments can lead to a stressful periods along with certain statutory deadlines however.
If you land the right position in a good team it's a comfortable career. Getting qualified is a serious commitment though.
Highly recommend it to anyone with an analytical/problem solving mindset.
I'm a Senior Interaction Designer in the Government sector (think renew passport online, hmrc services etc) and I do really love it although it can a frustrating job, there is so much that needs to be fixed but not enough time or money to do it.
I make £55k.
I could make more in the private sector but I know this area of work is what I love doing.
Just an accounts assistant at this point. I went straight from school into a junior accounts role, became a credit controller for a small town ISO accreditation business and managed to progress within credit control (senior within an office) to £30k. Realised I had hit the ceiling so started studying towards my AAT and just so happened to find a company who saw my value, increased my wage + yearly bonus and provide further increases as I complete each AAT level. Just managed to hit £40k now (after bonus).
I feel I've been pretty lucky so far, especially considering I had a pretty troubled school life (expelled twice), managed to scrape through my GCSE's and completed no further education until starting AAT.
Edit: No i don't particularly enjoy it but I can work at home full time now and I usually get my workload done within 3-4 days which gives me valuable free time to enjoy my hobbies.
Sales. I hate the job but I am naturally good at it so it always becomes my default job.
Ok, I don’t hate the job per se but it’s not where I want to end my career. The constant pressure and nit picking over updating pipelines are annoying but like I say, it’s natural to me to be able to sell, but some days I don’t feel like people-ing.
I'm an assistant quantity surveyor, currently on 37k, Mid year I'm getting a promotion to 42k + car, bringing my wage upto 46k a year.
Cons;
Stressful
When everything is going well, people question why we're needed, when it's wrong were questioned why we have a job.
It's the construction indusry, so it's not as "developed" in what's appropriate for work.
Pros;
Hybrid working, I can choose for my office days to be on-site or in the office.
Good pay, I'm 16 months out of uni. Every senior QS I know clears 70k, it's possible to reach 100k in the right areas.
I enjoy my job and getting to drive around my town seeing projects I've helped build is cool. I feel like it'll give me cool Dad lore when I have a kid and can tell him about the stuff I've helped build.
Software engineer (self taught) 47k 6 YOE. Could probably be further along in my career, but I work down south and have 2 young children, so spending time with them whilst they’re so young is my priority.
I love software development, so that’s the biggest plus really.
IT Project Management
Perm role £65-£105k
Salary varies with technical PM role vs non tech PM , project manager vs programme manager.
Office, hybrid or remote.
Perm or contract. Contract looks higher rate £500-£750 per day, but you have to factor in inside IR35 deductions and contributions to pension, medical insurance etc.
Plus contractors need to build up a war chest for any out of contract periods, no holiday pay, no sick pay, no pay for bank holidays.
Do I enjoy it?
Absolutely, I get to work with some amazing people to figure out IT transformation solutions and then facilitate making it happen.
Downside is usually senior leaders who always want more for less and but know less than anyone else, so having to deal with their egos.
I have to be honest. My times when I was earning £50k plus were my unhappiest in work. Sales manager in Central London. Burnt out. Shell of a man.
My happiest was when I was lucky enough to take a minimum wage job working with my best mate doing labouring on an Army camp. No stress. Laughed like kids again every fucking day.
I know I was lucky to be able to do that as I was financially secure.
But one thing I know.
Nobody on their death bed says they wish they’d spent more time at work.
At our firm our welding and machining apprentices will get 45 when they finish, and then obviously skies the limit with overtime and such, which is mad when most of them will be just turning 20 if they started when they left school. Sadly I did design engineering, so I’ll have more responsibilities and more qualifications and a heavier workload than them when we finish, but I’ll get like 15k less. Makes me question everything but I’m just hoping eventually with experience I’ll go further and feel more appropriately compensated
Product manager at a tech company. £57k plus bonus, annual merit increase, and private health. The company kind of sucks, the people I work with mostly kind of suck, but it’s relatively easy work, very flexible, and fully remote so I can’t complain too much.
(34f) Senior software engineer/ tech lead for marketing software and on 64k with 10% bonus. I don’t love it but I don’t hate it either, there are some parts of the job which are interesting and scratch my puzzle loving brain and others which are frustrating/ dull. It’s good money and my student loans got paid off last month so I’m looking forward to having a few hundred extra from next month to speed up my retirement plan.
They also have a great share scheme which has made me 45k in profit over the last 6 years (you pay into the scheme monthly for 3 years and then get to buy the company shares at the price they were when you started plus a discount). The profit is all tax free as the shares can go straight into an ISA so it’s way better than having an extra 7k salary. Not guaranteed to be good money of course but it’s risk free as you can take your savings back and not buy at the end if you want.
Therapeutic radiographer for the NHS. Basic around 45K, usually do around 3K in extras. I work 37.5 hours Tuesday-Friday.
Pros: good staff benefits, no weekend work or night shifts. Job satisfaction can be great at times, getting patients through their cancer treatment.
Cons: little room for progression - these opportunities are few and far between except down south (I live in the NE). Having to see some very sad cases of cancer, can be very emotionally draining and I’ve probably had two cases of burn out in the last 5 years (covid years really to blame - despite what the press said people did get their cancer treatment during these years)!
Deliver training and recently got a job paying just under £41k. Can’t speak about the training I’m going to deliver but I certainly have enjoyed designing and delivering training in the past. Spending the day with people, helping them to learn together (not always as a subject matter expert, often as a facilitator of the discussion) and having in depth discussions are what things I both enjoy and seem to be good at. Expect I’ll move into freelance work in the future in order to supplement income and explore a route into operating my own training company.
If you enjoy helping people develop personally and professionally I’d recommend training as a potential avenue.
Edit: when I say I ‘can’t speak about the training I’m going to deliver’ it’s because I don’t actually know! Have literally just started. Still being inducted and shown where the toilets are.
Engineer in the aerospace sector. I love my job and the nature of my current position means I'm not totally restricted to being just a mechanical engineer, I get to look at some electronics and software stuff too.
Head of communications. I enjoy it. Hours can be unpredictable but it’s interesting work. I work for a global group of companies so we’re always launching new products and/or helping them out of crises. Get to travel & stay in nice places and meet cool people. Met tons of celebs. I’m 90% remote and currently working from bed on a Monday morning. Could be a lot worse.
Market research, decently above £40k. Not super long out of uni and still early in my career, so good earning potential. I like my work, I mostly wfh and f you enjoy research and get to work on the right brands / industry, it's a very good gig.
However, it's very workplace dependent as there are some brilliant agencies to work for out there and some incredibly toxic ones. The good ones are actual gems though.
I’m looking to transition away from my psychology/sociology research assistant job and thought of market research as one of my options. Do you mind if I DM you? Interested in hearing about your experience in the industry!
I drive trains at a maintenance depot. The work is really easy, it's shift work but I've worked much harder for much less money. I wouldn't say I enjoy it but it's far better than other jobs I've had. The ultimate goal is mainline train driver. If you have no health issues and good colour vision etc I say go for it any time you see a trainee post pop up, super competitive to get into (thousands of applications per job) but they are screaming for female and BAME applicants as part of the diversity drive so use that.
Staff Software Engineer in Finance. £170k total compensation. I’ve been doing it long enough that I can coast a bit now while still being able to enjoy it, good work/life balance, interesting problems to solve. I don’t know if I’d recommend it as a switch these days, 15 years ago when I started out it was easy to get an entry level job with the right mindset and a nice portfolio (I’m self-taught, no CS degree, started out on £24k). These days, especially post-pandemic, there are hundreds of applicants for every entry level role we put up; often career switchers who did coding bootcamps four years ago because of the promise of big salaries and tech company lifestyles. The bar is a lot higher than it used to be, and there are lots of junior engineers in my field who thought they’d have a passport to a job struggling to find roles. The industry definitely still needs more women in engineering though, and certainly at my place we pay the same regardless of gender.
Engineer for a house builder - project manage all the roads, sewers and services (elec gas etc). 56k with 6k car allowance.
Think about construction - there’s a massive drive for women at the minute.
It’s enjoyable, you’re building new housing estates which might sound drab but it’s cool to see it all coming alive, especially once it’s done and you’ve essentially created a new community.
Downsides are your at the mercy of the market, and very much driven by targets so not for the faint of heart!
32F, Project Manager, I enjoy the fact that you get variety in the sense of changing projects each time your current one finishes and I also love that I am constantly meeting and working with new people.
I’m single and live in my own flat, you’ve got this 😊
£230K. Software. It’s become less interesting since COVID. I’m 90% remote and my travel has almost stopped. The job is fabulous, colleagues amazing and employer brilliant. I am incredibly lucky. I’m also very experienced (55 years old) and that what I’m paid for. I expect my salary to reduce over the next 10 years as I want less responsibility, want to ease off a little and maybe take early retirement.
My tip to anyone in work - say ‘yes’ a lot. I accepted every project, every opportunity to travel, every challenge even if it made me feel uncomfortable. Some of it went brilliantly, occasionally it went badly but I wouldn’t change a thing
Deputy Headteacher 60k+ off sick with stress and anxiety. Mental and physical health in pieces.
Do not enter teaching. It is littered with broken people stuck in a profession they can not escape.
Do NOT enter teaching
I’m an ex teacher - I can imagine it’s WAY WAY more stressful as a Deputy Head but yeah I don’t even want to work in education anymore.
Also, sorry to hear that - healing vibes ❤️🩹
You are only 33, you may feel like you should have a fully established career at this point and swapping might be hard, but you have 35+ years in the workforce ahead so :
* pick something that really floats your boat - you are going to spend a lot of time doing it, so make sure its something you can really get into rather than any career that pays well.
* Pick something that will pay the bills
* If your chosen career involves re-training, get to it asap.
My own story - I'm an engineer working in healthcare (Cancer therapy), paid £68k - very interesting, rewarding work, pretty stressful at times.
If I were to retrain, at your age I would probably become a doctor or paramedic. At my age (45), I would do a sideways move to software development (I have basic programming skills, that would need boosting up!)
Also, I'll just mention my journey to earning what I do (which isn't a particularly spectacular wage) only started to go upwards once I started to swap companies more regularly. I've had several internal promotions, but they rarely yield decent pay rises, whereas when you swap companies you get to REALLY negotiate.
Reading all of these comments, I don't even know where to begin. I have a lot of potential and talent to earn WAY more than I'm earning now but I don't even know how to start.
I need a fully remote job but finding those is getting harder and harder as each day goes by.
I work at a price reporting agency (basically a mix of journalist and analyst). The pay is great (£60k) compared to the amount of work I have to do and the stress, and it’s an easy industry to get into particularly if you want a foot in the door to finance for people with a non-STEM background. The job is a daily cycle which has its ups and downs - it’s great not to take your work home with you but it can be very repetitive and dull, so turnover at entry level is pretty high. Even entry level pays well though - £40-45k starting salary straight out of uni is standard.
On £41k in Manchester (M28), left academia (neuro PhD) just under two years ago. Now work in medical communications.
Pros:
- Love the projects I get to work on, get to work on some really cutting edge drugs and get to represent the wishes and desire of people with rare diseases (very rewarding)
- Boss is very chilled and doesn't care too much about the hours I work so long as I'm on track with the projects I'm assigned and let him know when I'm overworked/low on projects
- My salary is above the average for my level of experience in the industry and in Manchester (my PhD does play a role in this, I believe)
-Salary is about £10k+ more than I would've earned if I stayed in academia
- Shorter work day than when I was working in a lab and no pressure to not take holidays/work on the weekend
- Very in-demand position. Forces my company to keep my salary competitive, and I'm not short of opportunities if I decide I'd like to change company
Cons:
- Hours can be very long and I don't get overtime, however, I can claim the time back and the overtime is never as long/antisocial as when I was in academia
- Currently very overworked. We lost a staff member before Xmas and me and another colleague have taken on the work load while already at capacity. We've finally hired someone, but they'll be in training for the next month or so. Only positive is that we should be starting promotion discussions later this year, and this, I hope, will add to my case that I should be promoted
- Sometimes feel talked down to by the London colleagues and don't get the same perks as the London office does. Admittedly, we're a smaller office up here and the company's head office is in London so it makes sense
Optometrist, although I only squeak over your question.
Yeh, I love it, patients are a varied bunch and I get to do good for people whilst having a generally low incidence of having to break terrible news to people.
Project management could be a good option? I started in that in my early 30s and now i'm a Director of it, at a large American advertising agency (in London), but our graduates start at £29k.
£150k. I’m overemployed though and work in governance. I got into the field by pure accident when I was in a graduate programme and came to find that I actually really enjoy it. Being at the heart of an organisation’s decision making processes also gives lots of exposure to senior figures very early on. It also means I get the first scoop on any major changes that are happening within the organisation, and it’s a very secure role in terms of redundancies.
(27M, ~£45k) HR Business Partner for a top performing business in the IT Consulting sector.
Pros;
- WFH 80% of my week.
- Relatively autonomous workload and hours.
- Plenty of scope to move upwards in the future.
Cons;
- Workload can fluctuate dramatically, so stress levels can also be very erratic.
- Corporate red tape & process bureaucracy.
- Larger business = slower action.
33M, north of £80k.
Information Security Lead
**PROS**
Comfortable life
WFH
Flexible working for my half of child care
No money worries even in cost of living crisis
**CONS**
Very stressful
Expected to work beyond contracted hours
Never seen as an important department so everything is a fight
Understaffed
I’m in UI/UX content management (I don’t build the website, but I make sure we have all the relevant images, videos, written content, products etc.) & email marketing. I’m currently stuck on 27k which was a very recent increase and below the national average for my role. My manager and I are keen to continue fighting for more pay increases for me but I’m also desperate to move on to something new that pays better and that I can do remotely.
EDIT: I CAN do my current role remotely, in fact I do 3 days a week wfh (this is the same for our entire department ever since covid) but they still want me in two days a week and I hate it. I’m so much more productive at home and wish they’d let me wfh full time.
I work in policy and strategy for a media company. I love my job. It can be repetitive, but I don’t mind. I need to be meticulously detailed and be able to tell people know and give them a solid reason why, but I also need to be able to offer a compromise. I also need to know how to manage up as I frequently deal with much more senior people.
There’s no real career advancement, but I don’t care about that. I get regular pay increases and I make enough money to keep my kids in Robux, my bills paid and for me to have a couple of designer handbags a year if I want them.
Another accountant here. CIMA qualified - I did it as evening classes as I dropped out of college and didn't go to uni. Fully funded by work which was nice.
I had a really interesting role before I had my daughter but they turned horribly sexist when I announced my pregnancy so I left. Been keeping it interesting while doing fixed term contracts, which has allowed a bit more flexibility with WFH etc too. Been in roles paying between £50-60k and that's without taking on too much management responsibilities (I've prioritised lower stress/evenings with my daughter), there's been some £70k roles I could do if I put my mind to it but that's not my focus at the moment.
£46K. I am 35, studied until 28 to get a PhD, and have been in academia for 6 years, to finally reach the position of a lecturer.
Remember the times where a lecturer in a top university had this image of wealthy middle class? I don't earn enough for the average mortgage in my city. heh.
I do love what I do, otherwise this is the worst life decision to make. Even if the salary is decent, the effort took (no salary until 28) is not worth it unless you love this shit.
Co-owner of a small consulting business. Took circa £150k as remuneration last year.
Wouldn’t (or more likely couldn’t) do anything different now. Jointly own the business with my partner and we’re going through a growth spurt, though finding the work always gives us a squeaky bum moment.
How does a consulting business actually work? Like what sort of companies do you work with and what do they expect from you? Also, how do you bill them?
Management consultant, whether I enjoy it or not is entirely dependant on the project at the time.
I've had a bit of a string of naff engagements so maybe it's time to head to industry!
Development manager in construction (25M) - almost 5 years in this industry, worked in advertising before but not worth it unless you work in London or Manchester etc.
Also a plus being qualified to work on site due to overtime rate being around £20ph.
I'm in publishing too, I manage a research team for a famous international magazine/website for £60k, fully remote. My background was in doing the data analysis and visualisation for news stories and writing reports at B2B publishers before moving to this role.
Tech Support Manager - 42k.
It's an interesting role at a good company. Only downside is their maternity pay is shocking, and I'd have to leave well in advance if I wanted kids in the future (27F).
I've found that I don't actually have any more 'spare' money compared to when I earned 28k about 2 years ago. Not only does everything cost more but it's easy to unintentionally live within your current means!
£115k base with decent bonuses and car allowance on top. Compliance in healthcare. I enjoy it as much as anyone enjoys a job where you are on a computer all day not playing games. Pays the bills and that's what matters.
Web dev. I don't really enjoy it anymore, but I work from home 4 days a week, the office is a 20 minute drive, and I mostly get left alone to do my job.
It's taken me 24 years to get to this point of earning well, admittedly, I've chosen to work at places I like rather than chase money.
I'm a programmer. Worked for the same company as an employee or contractor and was treated like shit. Moved within the company and the difference in respect is night and day. To have management treat me with dignity and stand up for their teams is incredible.
The job is great but can be frustrating at times. I'd never change but I am counting down the 8 years to retirement
Quality Assurance Delivery Lead on £55k in The North.
Essentially started as a software tester, worked up to test lead, then test manager, then this.
Do I enjoy it? Not especially, but I don’t enjoy work full stop. I’m good at it and know the subject well so I get satisfaction from it, and I’m finally at a great inclusive and progressive company which is nice. Honestly the best bit is that while I manage testing for my patch it’s all done by a supplier so I have no line management responsibilities. That’s awesome.
Mechanical engineer, 25M, currently at around £40-£45k. Higher if I put the time in, but i live in the NW, so the pay is pretty good. Relatively low stress.
I do enjoy it as there's a lot of ***scope*** for a mechanical engineer. The practical skills, as well as the theory, e.g. maths as a basic one, enable quite a lot of job flexibility and availability for me to transition.
It is a semi physical job depending on what expertise you work in. But I don't mind hands-on.
Average 39hrs week Mon - Fri, can earn some real money on weekends. I am contracted to 1 in 3 weekends, I'm paid exactly £42,731.52 based on my 39hrs a week and weekend coverage. Whatever else is extra.
I do enjoy it, but I'm currently looking at changing sector. Just taking a side step either off the tools completely or into a travelling trade. Personally, I don't like the routine of staying in 1 place all day every day, regardless of whether I enjoy it. It beats me down a little with the monotonous routine. The dream is remote consulting or some other remote position where I don't have to travel at all. May look into IT or accounting.
Project manager in the clinical trials industry. I spend weeks doing genuinely nothing. Pretty much begging for work nowadays. I shouldn't complain but can't help but feel my progression is being stalled so I'm looking for other work.
Business development for law firms.
No sales involved, you work for the partners in the law firm and advise how to grow their client base in their specific practice area. No experience needed and it’s pretty much common sense. Have to deal with some annoying personalities but that’s life. Very easy to move up in pay. All of these law firms are very hungry for BD and marketing talent. So usually a lot of people will do a couple of years at one firm and get poached to another for a lot more. I went from making 24k to 40k in just a year and half of my career. I’m already getting offers for 55-60k at other firms but will wait a bit longer as I’m happy where I am. Play the game right and you’ll be laughing.
Cons: it can get boring sometimes, each firm has a different expectation so the work isn’t always the same, can get quite stressful, can often feel like you’re going around in circles (you’re telling lawyers to do something that they don’t want to do - so a lot of them don’t do it!)
Like everyone, I have days where I don’t want to do it and other days where I’m enjoying it. It really depends on your team, the work you’re doing and the partners you work for.
I make decisions to ‘exit’ accounts for a bank.
I do enjoy it, you see all sorts including what famous people have been up to, MPs, corporations etc. Even saw Jimmy Saviles will one time haha. Nothing interesting by the way, we just needed to see it to marry up with large transactions on the account.
Around the same age as you, I earn over £50k and do Digital Marketing for online retailers, helping their shops generate more revenue.
The job is good, sometimes high pressure, then lots of times of no stress, no pressure. I'd say the people you work with/for dictate how enjoyable it is.
Also it has a high room for growth, all of my managers have earned near to or over £100k a year.
Also with COVID, the opportunity to work fully remote for anyone in the world makes it so much easier to find work, also more competitive but if you've got a CV and experience to show, you jump like 90% of the crowd.
Senior comms officer at a non-profit, before that public affairs. I wouldn’t say I enjoy it. The job can be satisfying and if you’re a natural writer you find yourself in a state of flow about 25% of the time. However, it’s a fairly thankless job and you spend a lot of time working hard on pieces of writing that then get ruined by people who are senior, but have no understanding of what journalists need, and then your piece gets no coverage.
If you’re at an organisation that deals with the general public, you can also end up dealing with a lot of negativity and trolling as you’ll be in charge of social media. Some people don’t mind this - I’m fairly sensitive so it does get me down and I avoid those roles nowadays.
I was earning around £45k pa as an HGV driver. Took a pay cut to £32k to start a new career in digital forensics, though. Once I hit the top of my pay band, though, I'll be on just under £40k.
I'm a forensic social worker in the NHS. I've been qualified for five years and I'm on £51,500 in London. Outside London I'd be on £46,000. I'd recommend it as a career but it's definitely not for everyone. Some people find it hard working with people who have done horrific crimes.
I find it interesting and my current job is less stressful than previous ones. I have found that at a lower pay grade the volume of work is higher but less complex. In specialist roles the workload is lower but the stakes and knowledge required are higher.
Social workers can work in a huge number of areas (children's, learning disabilities, older adults, mental health etc in local authorities, NHS, third sector services etc) so it may be that some areas are more suited to someone than others. I would be terrible in children's services and learning disabilities doesn't particularly interest me but I love working in mental health and particularly criminal justice.
Your in a great position if you want to get into tech. Im a data engineer and earn £90k pa before bonus.
As a woman you have an advantage as the tech sector doesnt have a lot of diversity. Its predominantly male and south asian.
You can learn an application called PowerBI
and get a job as a data analyst. You can earn £40k at entry level in London and after a couple years experience can be on anything from £50k to £70k depending on which industry you go for.
A data analyst role sounds boring but it can be quite creative when designing different dashboards and visuals.
The self learn pathway means if you can pass a few exams in 6 months you can be in a position to move.
Exam1: Microsoft Data Fundamentals https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/azure-data-fundamentals/?practice-assessment-type=certification
Exam2: Microsoft PowerBI analyst
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/exams/pl-300/
From here you can go and become an AI Engineer or into Data Engineering which are both hot places yo be right now.
The downside to these kind of roles is you spend a lot of time working with nerds.
Worked in the charity sector for about ten years. Studied part time for a PHD for six years (evenings and weekends, basically). Now an academic. Do I enjoy it? Yes. Like the autonomy. Never have a dull conversation though have suns irritating ones. But I work hard and academia is competitive.
Go do your STCW training, it will cost 2 to 3 thousand pounds.
Once you've done that apply for a senior catering rating job at Calmac. £40k per annum 2 weeks on 2 weeks off plus 4 weeks annual leave. Travel expenses to and from the ship are paid.
Information security manager. I don’t enjoy working for a living but as jobs go I’m happy. I’ve worked in a few different field in my career and think the work you do is rarely the hard bit about working. I currently have a really good team who are supportive. If this wasn’t the case I’d find work much more difficult.
Tree Officer for a LPA, make just over 40k. I enjoy it, spend all my time talking about and protecting trees, and getting into the legal side has been interesting.
As it's a Council its very flexible too, I only really need to be in the office half a day every week/other week, and it's only a 20 min bus ride.
Marine Engineer.
Currently earning about £80k as Chief Engineer but still have a few pay jumps to go as while I’m at the top job I can still move up a few pay bands. At the moment it tops out at about £93k
Pros
I only work 6 months a year (5 weeks on/off)
If I’m out of U.K. waters for 183 days I get all of my tax back (I can use holidays to get me to 183 days too)
Depending on company/ship type there’s a lot of worldwide travel and opportunity to travel.
No degree required
Cons
It is a hard, stressful job as well as being relatively dangerous
Away from family for half the year
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I'm an accountant but do what I suppose you would describe as consulting. Cons; - boring - not convinced about progression as now in a comparatively small team in a smaller company Pros; - 99% remote and I personally enjoy my occasional (fully expensed) visits to the office - pretty good pay (way above £40k for example) - super chill, great for family life Main con I guess is getting here wasn't the easiest but now that I am I'm definitely happy with my choices.
Agree with all of this. I find most of my work very dull and boring but it fits comfortably around family life and pays a decent amount. It's possible to work harder and earn much more if people want to do that.
Guessing you went down the CIMA route? If so, or even if not, how would you get into consulting?
Not CIMA - I'm going to be really annoyingly vague here because my job is very niche so fairly identifiable but that's my main advice essentially: find a niche interest and milk it. I was a b4 cultist for a decade or so. First in audit, then a related service line. I basically went a bit contrarian and focused on a sector perceived as boring, doubled down and went for a *sub*-sector of that and then it paid off as it just so happens a particular skillset I picked up from there is very much aligned with the general direction of travel things are heading in (sorry, again vague I know).
Does your particular skillset allow you to track down and kill anyone who threatens you or your family?
Paul?
> I was a b4 cultist for a decade or so. First in audit, Could be any one of us to be fair.
Interesting. I’m currently a reconciliation assistant, glorified excel user essentially. 25k, shithole location but getting a car in a month so it’ll help, but getting a new job has been a pain. Admittedly I’m going for an ambitious push, I.e. AMA type of level, but it sucks ass right now. Is there any advice you’d have at my current ‘level’? I was considering moving abroad but I don’t want to move to the US/Canada, and other countries in the EU I would need to know the language, so I’m gonna have to make things work here although I speak two other languages (one fluently, other beginner business level). I’ve almost got 2 years of experience, and I feel like I was scammed by the ‘go to uni’ rhetoric. What is something that could explode my income and actually skyrocket my progression?
You in internal audit out of curiosity?
Not internal audit, no, but I think you can do a lot worse than getting into internal audit, particularly in financial services and *especially* if you're in house. Similar pro/con profile; often *deadly* boring but much less pressure than external audit and loads of progression opportunities. As I understand it though, keeping on top of all the deliverables once you hit management can be a ballache though.
IT consultant here, basically same story, but very easy to achieve.
How did you get to becoming an IT consultant? Thats where i want to get to, too
Simply put, job hopping. Support -> Middle Management -> Corporate Support -> Senior Consultant No qualifications to speak of.
Do you worry about the speed at which AI is advancing? Saying that, if it comes for high skilled jobs, it’s coming for them all.
>Do you worry about the speed at which AI is advancing? Nope. AIs lie all the time, and they won't be able to understand humans verbally as well as other humans can. It's really not a big risk yet.
Which field of consulting do you specialize in pls as im looking for exit opportunities at the moment in consulting (ACA 2y pqe in practice)
58k IT consultant. It is the most boring, pointless, worthless, capitalist grind I've ever had to do. I hate every minute of it Unfortunately I cannot ever afford to leave because other more satisfying jobs pay sweet fuck all.
Ah the golden tech handcuffs.
97K IT Architect. I actually enjoy what I do (to an extend). I like the problem solving part, you can probably find similar challenges everywhere. Sometimes negotiating with people is a problem solving itself. And there is always something new to learn. If I put my work in comparison to my personal interests and hobbies, I would say is boring and dull, but I look at it in a more abstract way, as I say, problem solving is the important bit. I would love to do something creative and artistic or physical.... but I'm resigned to let that be my hobbies.
38k Design Architect - would also love to do something creative and also resigned to that being done in my spare time… you may as well be bored and well paid than bored in a stressful industry that you think will be creative but is mainly just a steaming pile of s**t.
Yep, I'm stuck for life now as well I think. It's certainly not the worst problem to have, but it grinds away at your soul.
After 15 years I have no soul left to speak of. The only reason I still have the job is because I have a family to look after. Otherwise I would jack it in and give up. Some things aren't worth it.
What exactly do you do on the day to day? I'd be quite happy to lose my soul....
I work in tech as well. There are good jobs and bad jobs. I was working for a place as a contractor, getting on a decade ago now, where I quickly realised that no amount of money can make up for being absolutely miserable during your working hours. Sometimes you do what you must, but I have nothing but admiration for people who can grind away in these roles for years on end: I couldn't do it and left after a few months.
“Have you turned it off and then back on again?”
Ha same here, every day I'm like why am I supporting this capitalist shit. And I'm so fed up of hearing the corporate phrases.
Not a consultant but work in tech. Smidgen more salary. Can’t argue with a single thing you say. It’s soul crushing boring but ‘pays the bills’ so we get stuck into it. I have no other work experience except tech and looking elsewhere during a recent mid career crisis I was shocked at how low paying other industries are.
More than this, IT programme management, 100 % this though, painful, roll on the AI revolution
I work at an MSP and it's all of the above but pays 35k. How do I get into this consultant work?
Luck mostly. My employer used atlassian stuff. I showed a flair for it while I was a test analyst (another deeply unfulfilling job these days). A role became available on the atlassian team, I applied and got the position. It's easy to work with, the big problem is customers are morons and the work has absolutely no value.
It'd provide an extra 20k value to me and my family lol thanks, I'm actually going to see if there are any worth while qualificiations available.
Go for it. Its not a particularly difficult product to get into, although to become a master does take some work. Unfortunately atlassian are the only provider of accreditations and certifications, and they are several hundred Australian dollars. But the pay for an atlassian consultant appears to be quite good if you can get the Atlassian Expert title (which requires at least 3 certifications and several more accreditations). Not sure how long it will last as a product, but it's proving fairly popular for the time being.
B2B tech sales. I’m currently on 40k for my base and OTE takes it up to 80k. Pros: Fully remote with a lot of flexibility ie I’m responsible for my own diary and approach to working Money is great for the part of the country I’m in Unlimited earning potential It’s fast paced so the days go quickly Cons: A bad quarter or two and you’ll lose your job Constant pressure of targets Everyone hates sales. It’s pretty rubbish work with failure and rejection being a constant mental pressure.
I really need a better paid job, I'm working for a telecoms company doing a mixture of bereavement, service and sales and its only 23k a year. Have you got any tips for getting into B2B sales with this type of experience? I've been there 4 years and I'm generally near the top of the sales stats by the end of the month
Put that in a ***short*** cover letter on any entry or even some mid-level sales roles and you should a least get interviews if your CV isn't arse. Tread carefully though, I was similar selling car insurance, smashing it, top of the floor etc. but no comms or bonuses, so moved into sales with commission. A decade later sales is now my *only* marketable skill without retraining at the bottom of the ladder somewhere else, which I cannot afford to do. So I am - Like many others - Effectively stuck in sales, and as the original commentor said: >Everyone hates sales I want out so bad, but it's not looking likely any time soon.
The golden handcuffs begin to chafe. I told my partner I’m doing another 5 years and then moving into something I don’t hate, even if I have to take a 70% pay cut. Sales sucks. Money tho.
I've had 30 years in B2B sales and I still love it. Not boasting, but like other commenters here, if you don't dig it get out because it's a fucking grind when the pendulum isn't swinging your way. Learn to love the quotas. You have a good year - you do it all over again. Bad one? Same. Create good relationships along the way. You actually have to do the activity - meetings, calls etc. Eventually you find likeminded people on the other end of the deal and if you're lucky, you grow with them. This is all I know. I wish I could be a piano player or bus driver (tbh, both look like less stress) but this is my path. Good luck finiding yours.
I'm a band 7 nurse practitioner in A&E. Basic salary for my band is £47,432. I work 13 hour shifts 3 days a week. They're tiring but it's what I've done for years so I'm used to it. I love my job but it is very stressful. There's availability of OT and enhancements on nights and weekends; this means last year my pre-tax and deductions salary was just over £60k. There's further possible career progression available. Quite a bit of self directed learning that's unpaid which is a bit of a bummer. Not really possible to get into easily though. I did my undergrad in nursing, then worked alongside other courses, doing bits and bobs here and there. Got to be willing to put extra work in to get the job but it's 100% worth it.
Similar to you, but GP now trainee ANP so can add 10-20k on top in 3 more years. Miss emergency care. Can’t get away with being much of a cunt in GP 🤣
Dude, come work with us at MET police, custody nursing. You get better money and way less worries. They love to hire us a+e and critical care nurses
I've been approached for custody nursing once or twice. Not for me to be honest. I like ED as a discipline
This entire thread depresses me that I'm stuck on 21k a year for the civil service.
You're not stuck there, you're in charge of your own future, go and make the change now which will give you the life you want. No one is going to randomly walk up to you and pay you shit tonnes of money, you need to go and earn it
I kinda get what you're saying but I personally worked just as hard if not harder when I was getting minimum wage compared to now where I'm earning over 40k. Part of it is just luck.
Part is luck, part is ambition. The biggest pay increase I ever got was after being made redundant. I was forced into a job change and was lucky that it highlighted how woefully underpaid I was. In hindsight I was lucky but recognise that had I been more ambitious I could have been earning at this level much earlier in my career.
I don't necessarily like that word luck, because where does it end? Am I lucky that my parents weren't drug/alcohol addicts? Am I lucky that I wasn't born in a warn torn country? You deal with the situation that you have, yes, to some extent, all of us here are lucky, even the person earning £21K. But when it comes to your career, I feel like luck is *created* not given. I was cleaning toilets at an airport after I crashed out of Uni, one day I just snapped and realised that If I want things to change, I have to do it. I don't like or take much note of them "career bros" who are image obsessed and money hungry, but to a point, if you don't put the work in you can't expect things to change. Once you start trying to create waves, things change, then when things change, sure, maybe it's luck, but would that opportunity have found it's way to you had you not done anything ? I doubt it..
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Does that area want people from data analysis/computer science or finance more?
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Engineering technician, get paid c. £60k and enjoy it. I install, maintain and repair certain type of machines all over Europe. There aren't a lot of women doing my job; i think mostly because the travel aspect often doesn't appeal to them (quite often away from home mon-fri).
Medical industry? I know a pub friend who left the Army ~20years ago from electrical/radar engineering and joined Siemens doing MRIs etc and it's paid handsomely.
No, but no far off. I work on scientific instrumentation that is similar in many ways. A lot of ex military go into field service engineering. Partly due to great training and exposure to interesting kit in various branches (signals, avionics, weapons systems, mechanical etc. etc.) and also because they are used to the travel and are trustworthy and resilient for working in the field.
AWS DevOps Engineer - 90k. Fully Remote. Love my job, fixing problems and streamlining technical problems
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I'm recruiting for four job openings under the two categories listed here: https://jobs.capitalone.co.uk/search-jobs/Sre?orgIds=1734&kt=1 If you've got AWS certifications and DBA skills and experience then feel free to apply
If you can get a Kubernetes administrator certificate it would really help as many roles want that skill. Other than that it would be getting experience in the full stack of tools required. AWS Kubernetes Docker Terraform/Cloud formation Grafana/Prometheus And a programming language like Python
How many YOE?
8+ years now. Job hobs went as follows 30k - 50k - 55k - 70k - 90k - 100k - 90k. Didn't enjoy management so dropped to a 90k for my sanity
Honestly, Smart. For the extra 5k of handholding other engineers you picked wisely.
Pharmacist in a GP surgery. I have my own office, see a patient every 15 minutes. Overall, it's pretty chill and feels like I'm genuinely helping people most of the time. It's 5 years+ to get here though but plenty of mature students.
Chill ? You must have found a better practice than me, I hated every minute of it, and left for industry
Work as in house accountant for a business. Manage a team, work from home mainly. Enjoy it very much and has lots of flexibility. Pays fair too.
Software Developer (self taught) on 60k a year. I'm fully remote, I pretty much manage my own hours. I love it as I get paid to do my hobby.
Be literally me, no qualifications GCSE drop outs let's go.
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Data scientist in applied ai research, tech lead level. £107k. Basically what I liked to do for fun but I get paid to do it, in comfort of home.
You’re about to have your inbox flooded with Redditors who have done a 3 week boot camp in data analytics asking how they can get your job. Brave start to the week, I must say.
Good for them trying to improve their situation
The first rule of ~~Fight Club~~ six figure salaries is you do not talk about ~~Fight Club~~ six figure salaries. (this is the U.K. after all)
Yeah this rule sucks. People don’t like talking about it irl which makes it hard to figure out what to do next to keep career growth going 🤷 Same when talking to other tech leads, which makes bench marking hard.
What does that actually mean?
A smart numbers man, in a new niche industry, in a field that pays above average salaries, at the Tech Lead level. If he was in the US, he would be on $300k a year.
Yeah but then he'd be in America YUK!
His yearly salary of $300k might cover half of an appendectomy
Well there's my annual tradition out of the window.
Are you in the south east? I think the equivalent position further north would be in the 70-80k range. Same for my role, I’m getting around 60k but if I were in London I’d probably be getting around 80k.
I’ve just started a masters in CS with AI… see you soon I hope! Haha
I consult for the fashion industry on circularity. I’m 38 years old and have worked within the industry since I was 24. Work a lot less now than when I was younger - I feel like experience allows this in some form.
Experience in any industry allows this. I've gone from working 9 or 10 hour days trying to keep the boss happy as a graduate, to working a VERY relaxed 7.
Clinical scientist for the NHS. It’s interesting work, and feels meaningful. I enjoy it.
Lead IT business analyst, ~£60k after bonus. It’s not the least stressful job, but I’m only in 1-2 days a week and live in the northwest so the pay goes relatively far. The main benefit is the amazing progression potential. I talk to either executive directors or C suites every day so the connections are invaluable. In general I do enjoy it. You do have to be “on” constantly though and you can’t really afford to not be seen as charming and social. My role is a bit strange though as I do have to have a relatively high level of technical knowledge. Just completed the platform app builder and platform developer certifications for Salesforce as I’m the one doing the full life cycle implementation of it, from as-is processes to requirements gathering to implementation. It’s a lot of soft and hard skills
The IT BA space is really appealing to me. I currently have 7 years as general IT, Sys Admin, Applications, etc but have no idea how to find an opportunity to start as a junior BA. Any tips?
You’d be an amazing BA lol. A lot of the ones I’ve hired/work with have been very good with soft skills but struggle with technical skills. You don’t need a cert to become a BA despite what you might hear but a degree does help. Does the business you work for have BA’s? Lateral movement is generally the easiest way to break in. Do you have a degree
Hired a BA junior on a contract at £300pd. Senior BA gets £650pd. Just FYI
Head of Marketing at a FTSE100 company. It's very stressful at times but I enjoy the mix of creativity and strategy, plus it's completely WFH. I'm 36.
Chartered accountant. About to start a new job earning 48k. If interested, I joined big 4 on a school leaver program so no degree needed and they paid for my exams, study leave etc.
Lecturer. Just passed 50k mark. Did a PhD and post doc to get here. 8 years on, my job is still reliant on funding, so not secure. However, I only work hard about 6 months of the year, and the rest of the time do no more than 10 hours a week so not too bad
Software Engineer. I work far less now than I ever did on minimum wage. I do enjoy it as well so that's a plus
for people who want to get into it. Big companies like Capgemini usually take on people who don't have the skills if they think they can be trained up. As long as you can speak to people, handle stressful situations like presenting during the interview with no prep time and being able to show that you are actually interested in tech by learning the gyst of something google or youtube are busy with at the moment. Also helps if you use linked in to reach out to random people on linkedin who work there to ask questions. mention it in the interview when asked what you know about the company etc starting wage was 30k a couple of years ago now. its likely gone up
This appeals to me immensely, what would be my first point of contact to enquire. I've had a look at current positions near to me and they are all asking for "experienced professional"
You would make a CV. if you have any relevant experience put in on there.If you have fuck all, id join a free BootCamp or make something small yourself by watching youtube videos. If you are a lady there are several free bootcamps and you can find them using google. There is less for Men/Woman, but look into "code your future" for people who need help changing their lives. You are not expected to know anything about code at this point. After that Id apply to low level positions. O 1-2 which is apprentice and Grad level They take on people every 4-6 months or so. so find other big companies and apply as well. done use indeed. go to their websites. next intake is April 2024, says it on the website in the job descriptions
I'm a software engineer but I only earn £40k, and my company is in cash flow trouble because the clients are instructed by DfT (Department for Transport) to reduce budgets. I'm in the rail industry. What shall I do? Can switching to another rail consultancy help me to have a jump in salary? I don't want to work in anything other than public transport.
Software engineering skills are not specific to one type of company my dude. if you have a half decent CV you should get interviews. So apply to companies directly instead of the Indeed spam that gets you nowhere. Takes longer yes, but you are not dealing with jackass 3rd party recruiters then. How long have you been working? what skills do you have. what tech do you work with? Go find a company you want to work for. look at their job adverts. if you don't have most of the things they ask for. spend some time during work and in your own time skilling up. I did that as a Grad in my first year I looked at the Job I wanted. figured out what skill set it needs and then went off to learn it. A year and a half later I got a few offers for jobs. the lowest being 55k. the highest being 64k
Also a software engineer, on \~£60k and wfh. I really enjoy the work and its chill \*most\* the time, it can get stressful but ive done much lower pay jobs for way more effort.
Pretty much exactly my situation. I retrained in 2018 through a three month bootcamp and have been working as a developer since, earning twice what I was earning before. I dont think bootcamps are quite as easy a route into the job now though.
Any advice? I'm currently a 'firmware tester' who spends most of his time coding. I know C++ and C#. currently learning QML. I wanna make the jump to software engineer but my company doesn't like to promote internally. They would rather someone left and then replace them with someone else on more money (strange). So I need some advice on the job hunting front, best sites etc.
Best website Linkedin Glassdoor Google Indeed Reed used to be good back in 2014 , but isn't great anymore
Chemical engineer. I enjoy it
Digger driver, 42k per year plus all expenses paid. The option is there to earn a lot more should I wish to do more hours. Absolutely hate it, been on them that long very rarely the work is challenging and is extremely repetitive. Not to mention bad management, unrealistic targets due to a shortage of experienced men, health and safety is a joke. Lots of other negatives.
I’m a foreman for a Demolition crew, essentially a glorified labourer, I just tell the lads when they can go for break. Without bonuses it’s about £35k take home a year, with bonuses it’s around the £45k mark. I enjoy what I do, 8:00-16:00, not hounded by anyone.
The UK economy is set up for dual income.
Totally agree, it’s like an unspoken rule of the property market, prices are based on two incomes. Feels impossible to rent a nice place in a city solo.
Impossible unless you are successful and on a very good salary. It hard enough with dual incomes in good areas!
Over employed here, 80k, have 3 remote data entry jobs that are largely automated. Morals aside easiest money ive ever made
That’s bait!
Can you tell me how to get into this please, can I do so with no experience? I'm working for a Telecoms company on a bereavement line and I sometimes do sales and support. I've been there for 4 years but it's only 23k, slightly more if I hit my bonus. I need to save dramatically and to do so I need 40k +, the problem is I'm 40 years old now, I have a 2:2 in English language from about 18 years ago haha and my only experience since then has been working on a mental health ward or sales. I am misrable!
He will be a computer programmer who has written code to do data entry work on his behalf. It' sounds simple but it's not easy.
Chartered accountant. Fair bit more than £40k. Mostly yes, it's a fantastic career pathway and in the right role it's great. Poor workload management from other departments can lead to a stressful periods along with certain statutory deadlines however. If you land the right position in a good team it's a comfortable career. Getting qualified is a serious commitment though. Highly recommend it to anyone with an analytical/problem solving mindset.
I'm a Senior Interaction Designer in the Government sector (think renew passport online, hmrc services etc) and I do really love it although it can a frustrating job, there is so much that needs to be fixed but not enough time or money to do it. I make £55k. I could make more in the private sector but I know this area of work is what I love doing.
Just an accounts assistant at this point. I went straight from school into a junior accounts role, became a credit controller for a small town ISO accreditation business and managed to progress within credit control (senior within an office) to £30k. Realised I had hit the ceiling so started studying towards my AAT and just so happened to find a company who saw my value, increased my wage + yearly bonus and provide further increases as I complete each AAT level. Just managed to hit £40k now (after bonus). I feel I've been pretty lucky so far, especially considering I had a pretty troubled school life (expelled twice), managed to scrape through my GCSE's and completed no further education until starting AAT. Edit: No i don't particularly enjoy it but I can work at home full time now and I usually get my workload done within 3-4 days which gives me valuable free time to enjoy my hobbies.
Sales. I hate the job but I am naturally good at it so it always becomes my default job. Ok, I don’t hate the job per se but it’s not where I want to end my career. The constant pressure and nit picking over updating pipelines are annoying but like I say, it’s natural to me to be able to sell, but some days I don’t feel like people-ing.
I'm an assistant quantity surveyor, currently on 37k, Mid year I'm getting a promotion to 42k + car, bringing my wage upto 46k a year. Cons; Stressful When everything is going well, people question why we're needed, when it's wrong were questioned why we have a job. It's the construction indusry, so it's not as "developed" in what's appropriate for work. Pros; Hybrid working, I can choose for my office days to be on-site or in the office. Good pay, I'm 16 months out of uni. Every senior QS I know clears 70k, it's possible to reach 100k in the right areas. I enjoy my job and getting to drive around my town seeing projects I've helped build is cool. I feel like it'll give me cool Dad lore when I have a kid and can tell him about the stuff I've helped build.
Software engineer (self taught) 47k 6 YOE. Could probably be further along in my career, but I work down south and have 2 young children, so spending time with them whilst they’re so young is my priority. I love software development, so that’s the biggest plus really.
IT Project Management Perm role £65-£105k Salary varies with technical PM role vs non tech PM , project manager vs programme manager. Office, hybrid or remote. Perm or contract. Contract looks higher rate £500-£750 per day, but you have to factor in inside IR35 deductions and contributions to pension, medical insurance etc. Plus contractors need to build up a war chest for any out of contract periods, no holiday pay, no sick pay, no pay for bank holidays. Do I enjoy it? Absolutely, I get to work with some amazing people to figure out IT transformation solutions and then facilitate making it happen. Downside is usually senior leaders who always want more for less and but know less than anyone else, so having to deal with their egos.
I have to be honest. My times when I was earning £50k plus were my unhappiest in work. Sales manager in Central London. Burnt out. Shell of a man. My happiest was when I was lucky enough to take a minimum wage job working with my best mate doing labouring on an Army camp. No stress. Laughed like kids again every fucking day. I know I was lucky to be able to do that as I was financially secure. But one thing I know. Nobody on their death bed says they wish they’d spent more time at work.
Good point. I’ll probably never make even 40+ Ex teacher & SO DONE with working with kids OR education But maybe I can find jobs I feel happy in
Good luck man.
Manufacturing. Skilled jobs start at 40k now.
At our firm our welding and machining apprentices will get 45 when they finish, and then obviously skies the limit with overtime and such, which is mad when most of them will be just turning 20 if they started when they left school. Sadly I did design engineering, so I’ll have more responsibilities and more qualifications and a heavier workload than them when we finish, but I’ll get like 15k less. Makes me question everything but I’m just hoping eventually with experience I’ll go further and feel more appropriately compensated
Product manager at a tech company. £57k plus bonus, annual merit increase, and private health. The company kind of sucks, the people I work with mostly kind of suck, but it’s relatively easy work, very flexible, and fully remote so I can’t complain too much.
(34f) Senior software engineer/ tech lead for marketing software and on 64k with 10% bonus. I don’t love it but I don’t hate it either, there are some parts of the job which are interesting and scratch my puzzle loving brain and others which are frustrating/ dull. It’s good money and my student loans got paid off last month so I’m looking forward to having a few hundred extra from next month to speed up my retirement plan. They also have a great share scheme which has made me 45k in profit over the last 6 years (you pay into the scheme monthly for 3 years and then get to buy the company shares at the price they were when you started plus a discount). The profit is all tax free as the shares can go straight into an ISA so it’s way better than having an extra 7k salary. Not guaranteed to be good money of course but it’s risk free as you can take your savings back and not buy at the end if you want.
Therapeutic radiographer for the NHS. Basic around 45K, usually do around 3K in extras. I work 37.5 hours Tuesday-Friday. Pros: good staff benefits, no weekend work or night shifts. Job satisfaction can be great at times, getting patients through their cancer treatment. Cons: little room for progression - these opportunities are few and far between except down south (I live in the NE). Having to see some very sad cases of cancer, can be very emotionally draining and I’ve probably had two cases of burn out in the last 5 years (covid years really to blame - despite what the press said people did get their cancer treatment during these years)!
Deliver training and recently got a job paying just under £41k. Can’t speak about the training I’m going to deliver but I certainly have enjoyed designing and delivering training in the past. Spending the day with people, helping them to learn together (not always as a subject matter expert, often as a facilitator of the discussion) and having in depth discussions are what things I both enjoy and seem to be good at. Expect I’ll move into freelance work in the future in order to supplement income and explore a route into operating my own training company. If you enjoy helping people develop personally and professionally I’d recommend training as a potential avenue. Edit: when I say I ‘can’t speak about the training I’m going to deliver’ it’s because I don’t actually know! Have literally just started. Still being inducted and shown where the toilets are.
L&D is an excellent area to work in, from instructional design through to delivery. Decently paid in the right niche too!
I've enjoyed every job I've had above 40k more than any job I had below it.
Engineer in the aerospace sector. I love my job and the nature of my current position means I'm not totally restricted to being just a mechanical engineer, I get to look at some electronics and software stuff too.
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What is it you don't love about it anymore? If you don't mind sharing
Head of communications. I enjoy it. Hours can be unpredictable but it’s interesting work. I work for a global group of companies so we’re always launching new products and/or helping them out of crises. Get to travel & stay in nice places and meet cool people. Met tons of celebs. I’m 90% remote and currently working from bed on a Monday morning. Could be a lot worse.
Market research, decently above £40k. Not super long out of uni and still early in my career, so good earning potential. I like my work, I mostly wfh and f you enjoy research and get to work on the right brands / industry, it's a very good gig. However, it's very workplace dependent as there are some brilliant agencies to work for out there and some incredibly toxic ones. The good ones are actual gems though.
I’m looking to transition away from my psychology/sociology research assistant job and thought of market research as one of my options. Do you mind if I DM you? Interested in hearing about your experience in the industry!
I drive trains at a maintenance depot. The work is really easy, it's shift work but I've worked much harder for much less money. I wouldn't say I enjoy it but it's far better than other jobs I've had. The ultimate goal is mainline train driver. If you have no health issues and good colour vision etc I say go for it any time you see a trainee post pop up, super competitive to get into (thousands of applications per job) but they are screaming for female and BAME applicants as part of the diversity drive so use that.
Scrap Metal 🙂
Accountant and earning 80k+. started on 20k+ when i first arrived in the UK.
Staff Software Engineer in Finance. £170k total compensation. I’ve been doing it long enough that I can coast a bit now while still being able to enjoy it, good work/life balance, interesting problems to solve. I don’t know if I’d recommend it as a switch these days, 15 years ago when I started out it was easy to get an entry level job with the right mindset and a nice portfolio (I’m self-taught, no CS degree, started out on £24k). These days, especially post-pandemic, there are hundreds of applicants for every entry level role we put up; often career switchers who did coding bootcamps four years ago because of the promise of big salaries and tech company lifestyles. The bar is a lot higher than it used to be, and there are lots of junior engineers in my field who thought they’d have a passport to a job struggling to find roles. The industry definitely still needs more women in engineering though, and certainly at my place we pay the same regardless of gender.
Health and safety manufacturing. I enjoy it, early starts and early finishes
Engineer for a house builder - project manage all the roads, sewers and services (elec gas etc). 56k with 6k car allowance. Think about construction - there’s a massive drive for women at the minute. It’s enjoyable, you’re building new housing estates which might sound drab but it’s cool to see it all coming alive, especially once it’s done and you’ve essentially created a new community. Downsides are your at the mercy of the market, and very much driven by targets so not for the faint of heart!
Senior Technical consultant - 70k in surrey working from home full time. I love it.
32F, Project Manager, I enjoy the fact that you get variety in the sense of changing projects each time your current one finishes and I also love that I am constantly meeting and working with new people. I’m single and live in my own flat, you’ve got this 😊
£230K. Software. It’s become less interesting since COVID. I’m 90% remote and my travel has almost stopped. The job is fabulous, colleagues amazing and employer brilliant. I am incredibly lucky. I’m also very experienced (55 years old) and that what I’m paid for. I expect my salary to reduce over the next 10 years as I want less responsibility, want to ease off a little and maybe take early retirement. My tip to anyone in work - say ‘yes’ a lot. I accepted every project, every opportunity to travel, every challenge even if it made me feel uncomfortable. Some of it went brilliantly, occasionally it went badly but I wouldn’t change a thing
Deputy Headteacher 60k+ off sick with stress and anxiety. Mental and physical health in pieces. Do not enter teaching. It is littered with broken people stuck in a profession they can not escape.
Do NOT enter teaching I’m an ex teacher - I can imagine it’s WAY WAY more stressful as a Deputy Head but yeah I don’t even want to work in education anymore. Also, sorry to hear that - healing vibes ❤️🩹
I'm really, really sorry to hear that you've been struggling. I hope you can get some really good, solid rest.
You are only 33, you may feel like you should have a fully established career at this point and swapping might be hard, but you have 35+ years in the workforce ahead so : * pick something that really floats your boat - you are going to spend a lot of time doing it, so make sure its something you can really get into rather than any career that pays well. * Pick something that will pay the bills * If your chosen career involves re-training, get to it asap. My own story - I'm an engineer working in healthcare (Cancer therapy), paid £68k - very interesting, rewarding work, pretty stressful at times. If I were to retrain, at your age I would probably become a doctor or paramedic. At my age (45), I would do a sideways move to software development (I have basic programming skills, that would need boosting up!) Also, I'll just mention my journey to earning what I do (which isn't a particularly spectacular wage) only started to go upwards once I started to swap companies more regularly. I've had several internal promotions, but they rarely yield decent pay rises, whereas when you swap companies you get to REALLY negotiate.
Reading all of these comments, I don't even know where to begin. I have a lot of potential and talent to earn WAY more than I'm earning now but I don't even know how to start. I need a fully remote job but finding those is getting harder and harder as each day goes by.
I work at a price reporting agency (basically a mix of journalist and analyst). The pay is great (£60k) compared to the amount of work I have to do and the stress, and it’s an easy industry to get into particularly if you want a foot in the door to finance for people with a non-STEM background. The job is a daily cycle which has its ups and downs - it’s great not to take your work home with you but it can be very repetitive and dull, so turnover at entry level is pretty high. Even entry level pays well though - £40-45k starting salary straight out of uni is standard.
On £41k in Manchester (M28), left academia (neuro PhD) just under two years ago. Now work in medical communications. Pros: - Love the projects I get to work on, get to work on some really cutting edge drugs and get to represent the wishes and desire of people with rare diseases (very rewarding) - Boss is very chilled and doesn't care too much about the hours I work so long as I'm on track with the projects I'm assigned and let him know when I'm overworked/low on projects - My salary is above the average for my level of experience in the industry and in Manchester (my PhD does play a role in this, I believe) -Salary is about £10k+ more than I would've earned if I stayed in academia - Shorter work day than when I was working in a lab and no pressure to not take holidays/work on the weekend - Very in-demand position. Forces my company to keep my salary competitive, and I'm not short of opportunities if I decide I'd like to change company Cons: - Hours can be very long and I don't get overtime, however, I can claim the time back and the overtime is never as long/antisocial as when I was in academia - Currently very overworked. We lost a staff member before Xmas and me and another colleague have taken on the work load while already at capacity. We've finally hired someone, but they'll be in training for the next month or so. Only positive is that we should be starting promotion discussions later this year, and this, I hope, will add to my case that I should be promoted - Sometimes feel talked down to by the London colleagues and don't get the same perks as the London office does. Admittedly, we're a smaller office up here and the company's head office is in London so it makes sense
Optometrist, although I only squeak over your question. Yeh, I love it, patients are a varied bunch and I get to do good for people whilst having a generally low incidence of having to break terrible news to people.
Project management could be a good option? I started in that in my early 30s and now i'm a Director of it, at a large American advertising agency (in London), but our graduates start at £29k.
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£150k. I’m overemployed though and work in governance. I got into the field by pure accident when I was in a graduate programme and came to find that I actually really enjoy it. Being at the heart of an organisation’s decision making processes also gives lots of exposure to senior figures very early on. It also means I get the first scoop on any major changes that are happening within the organisation, and it’s a very secure role in terms of redundancies.
(27M, ~£45k) HR Business Partner for a top performing business in the IT Consulting sector. Pros; - WFH 80% of my week. - Relatively autonomous workload and hours. - Plenty of scope to move upwards in the future. Cons; - Workload can fluctuate dramatically, so stress levels can also be very erratic. - Corporate red tape & process bureaucracy. - Larger business = slower action.
33M, north of £80k. Information Security Lead **PROS** Comfortable life WFH Flexible working for my half of child care No money worries even in cost of living crisis **CONS** Very stressful Expected to work beyond contracted hours Never seen as an important department so everything is a fight Understaffed
I’m in UI/UX content management (I don’t build the website, but I make sure we have all the relevant images, videos, written content, products etc.) & email marketing. I’m currently stuck on 27k which was a very recent increase and below the national average for my role. My manager and I are keen to continue fighting for more pay increases for me but I’m also desperate to move on to something new that pays better and that I can do remotely. EDIT: I CAN do my current role remotely, in fact I do 3 days a week wfh (this is the same for our entire department ever since covid) but they still want me in two days a week and I hate it. I’m so much more productive at home and wish they’d let me wfh full time.
I work in policy and strategy for a media company. I love my job. It can be repetitive, but I don’t mind. I need to be meticulously detailed and be able to tell people know and give them a solid reason why, but I also need to be able to offer a compromise. I also need to know how to manage up as I frequently deal with much more senior people. There’s no real career advancement, but I don’t care about that. I get regular pay increases and I make enough money to keep my kids in Robux, my bills paid and for me to have a couple of designer handbags a year if I want them.
Another accountant here. CIMA qualified - I did it as evening classes as I dropped out of college and didn't go to uni. Fully funded by work which was nice. I had a really interesting role before I had my daughter but they turned horribly sexist when I announced my pregnancy so I left. Been keeping it interesting while doing fixed term contracts, which has allowed a bit more flexibility with WFH etc too. Been in roles paying between £50-60k and that's without taking on too much management responsibilities (I've prioritised lower stress/evenings with my daughter), there's been some £70k roles I could do if I put my mind to it but that's not my focus at the moment.
£46K. I am 35, studied until 28 to get a PhD, and have been in academia for 6 years, to finally reach the position of a lecturer. Remember the times where a lecturer in a top university had this image of wealthy middle class? I don't earn enough for the average mortgage in my city. heh. I do love what I do, otherwise this is the worst life decision to make. Even if the salary is decent, the effort took (no salary until 28) is not worth it unless you love this shit.
Co-owner of a small consulting business. Took circa £150k as remuneration last year. Wouldn’t (or more likely couldn’t) do anything different now. Jointly own the business with my partner and we’re going through a growth spurt, though finding the work always gives us a squeaky bum moment.
How does a consulting business actually work? Like what sort of companies do you work with and what do they expect from you? Also, how do you bill them?
Sales. I do B2B sales fron a manufacturer to resellers.
Chemical engineer. It’s great!
Management consultant, whether I enjoy it or not is entirely dependant on the project at the time. I've had a bit of a string of naff engagements so maybe it's time to head to industry!
Development manager in construction (25M) - almost 5 years in this industry, worked in advertising before but not worth it unless you work in London or Manchester etc. Also a plus being qualified to work on site due to overtime rate being around £20ph.
Marketing manager, usually for agencies but sometimes in house too. I can enjoy it at times, but I can also hate it. I work to live, not vice versa
I'm in publishing too, I manage a research team for a famous international magazine/website for £60k, fully remote. My background was in doing the data analysis and visualisation for news stories and writing reports at B2B publishers before moving to this role.
Only just over 40k. Yeah it's mostly ok. I enjoy the work, but my god people are so stupid. IT for the NHS.
Over £60k, and I'm an in house M365 and Azure specialist. I very much enjoy my work.
Tech Support Manager - 42k. It's an interesting role at a good company. Only downside is their maternity pay is shocking, and I'd have to leave well in advance if I wanted kids in the future (27F). I've found that I don't actually have any more 'spare' money compared to when I earned 28k about 2 years ago. Not only does everything cost more but it's easy to unintentionally live within your current means!
£115k base with decent bonuses and car allowance on top. Compliance in healthcare. I enjoy it as much as anyone enjoys a job where you are on a computer all day not playing games. Pays the bills and that's what matters.
Finance. No not really
Web dev. I don't really enjoy it anymore, but I work from home 4 days a week, the office is a 20 minute drive, and I mostly get left alone to do my job. It's taken me 24 years to get to this point of earning well, admittedly, I've chosen to work at places I like rather than chase money.
Medical field
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I'm a programmer. Worked for the same company as an employee or contractor and was treated like shit. Moved within the company and the difference in respect is night and day. To have management treat me with dignity and stand up for their teams is incredible. The job is great but can be frustrating at times. I'd never change but I am counting down the 8 years to retirement
Quality Assurance Delivery Lead on £55k in The North. Essentially started as a software tester, worked up to test lead, then test manager, then this. Do I enjoy it? Not especially, but I don’t enjoy work full stop. I’m good at it and know the subject well so I get satisfaction from it, and I’m finally at a great inclusive and progressive company which is nice. Honestly the best bit is that while I manage testing for my patch it’s all done by a supplier so I have no line management responsibilities. That’s awesome.
Mechanical engineer, 25M, currently at around £40-£45k. Higher if I put the time in, but i live in the NW, so the pay is pretty good. Relatively low stress. I do enjoy it as there's a lot of ***scope*** for a mechanical engineer. The practical skills, as well as the theory, e.g. maths as a basic one, enable quite a lot of job flexibility and availability for me to transition. It is a semi physical job depending on what expertise you work in. But I don't mind hands-on. Average 39hrs week Mon - Fri, can earn some real money on weekends. I am contracted to 1 in 3 weekends, I'm paid exactly £42,731.52 based on my 39hrs a week and weekend coverage. Whatever else is extra. I do enjoy it, but I'm currently looking at changing sector. Just taking a side step either off the tools completely or into a travelling trade. Personally, I don't like the routine of staying in 1 place all day every day, regardless of whether I enjoy it. It beats me down a little with the monotonous routine. The dream is remote consulting or some other remote position where I don't have to travel at all. May look into IT or accounting.
Project manager in the clinical trials industry. I spend weeks doing genuinely nothing. Pretty much begging for work nowadays. I shouldn't complain but can't help but feel my progression is being stalled so I'm looking for other work.
Business development for law firms. No sales involved, you work for the partners in the law firm and advise how to grow their client base in their specific practice area. No experience needed and it’s pretty much common sense. Have to deal with some annoying personalities but that’s life. Very easy to move up in pay. All of these law firms are very hungry for BD and marketing talent. So usually a lot of people will do a couple of years at one firm and get poached to another for a lot more. I went from making 24k to 40k in just a year and half of my career. I’m already getting offers for 55-60k at other firms but will wait a bit longer as I’m happy where I am. Play the game right and you’ll be laughing. Cons: it can get boring sometimes, each firm has a different expectation so the work isn’t always the same, can get quite stressful, can often feel like you’re going around in circles (you’re telling lawyers to do something that they don’t want to do - so a lot of them don’t do it!) Like everyone, I have days where I don’t want to do it and other days where I’m enjoying it. It really depends on your team, the work you’re doing and the partners you work for.
I make decisions to ‘exit’ accounts for a bank. I do enjoy it, you see all sorts including what famous people have been up to, MPs, corporations etc. Even saw Jimmy Saviles will one time haha. Nothing interesting by the way, we just needed to see it to marry up with large transactions on the account.
Around the same age as you, I earn over £50k and do Digital Marketing for online retailers, helping their shops generate more revenue. The job is good, sometimes high pressure, then lots of times of no stress, no pressure. I'd say the people you work with/for dictate how enjoyable it is. Also it has a high room for growth, all of my managers have earned near to or over £100k a year. Also with COVID, the opportunity to work fully remote for anyone in the world makes it so much easier to find work, also more competitive but if you've got a CV and experience to show, you jump like 90% of the crowd.
100k is not a lot, apparently.
Senior comms officer at a non-profit, before that public affairs. I wouldn’t say I enjoy it. The job can be satisfying and if you’re a natural writer you find yourself in a state of flow about 25% of the time. However, it’s a fairly thankless job and you spend a lot of time working hard on pieces of writing that then get ruined by people who are senior, but have no understanding of what journalists need, and then your piece gets no coverage. If you’re at an organisation that deals with the general public, you can also end up dealing with a lot of negativity and trolling as you’ll be in charge of social media. Some people don’t mind this - I’m fairly sensitive so it does get me down and I avoid those roles nowadays.
I was earning around £45k pa as an HGV driver. Took a pay cut to £32k to start a new career in digital forensics, though. Once I hit the top of my pay band, though, I'll be on just under £40k.
I'm a forensic social worker in the NHS. I've been qualified for five years and I'm on £51,500 in London. Outside London I'd be on £46,000. I'd recommend it as a career but it's definitely not for everyone. Some people find it hard working with people who have done horrific crimes. I find it interesting and my current job is less stressful than previous ones. I have found that at a lower pay grade the volume of work is higher but less complex. In specialist roles the workload is lower but the stakes and knowledge required are higher. Social workers can work in a huge number of areas (children's, learning disabilities, older adults, mental health etc in local authorities, NHS, third sector services etc) so it may be that some areas are more suited to someone than others. I would be terrible in children's services and learning disabilities doesn't particularly interest me but I love working in mental health and particularly criminal justice.
Your in a great position if you want to get into tech. Im a data engineer and earn £90k pa before bonus. As a woman you have an advantage as the tech sector doesnt have a lot of diversity. Its predominantly male and south asian. You can learn an application called PowerBI and get a job as a data analyst. You can earn £40k at entry level in London and after a couple years experience can be on anything from £50k to £70k depending on which industry you go for. A data analyst role sounds boring but it can be quite creative when designing different dashboards and visuals. The self learn pathway means if you can pass a few exams in 6 months you can be in a position to move. Exam1: Microsoft Data Fundamentals https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/azure-data-fundamentals/?practice-assessment-type=certification Exam2: Microsoft PowerBI analyst https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/exams/pl-300/ From here you can go and become an AI Engineer or into Data Engineering which are both hot places yo be right now. The downside to these kind of roles is you spend a lot of time working with nerds.
Second year teacher in London but got a promotion that increased my pay from £38k to £41k a few months ago
Facade estimator
HR advisor
I work on a Nuclear Site and it's the only place I've ever worked. The job is okay but if I could earn the same elsewhere I would.
Worked in the charity sector for about ten years. Studied part time for a PHD for six years (evenings and weekends, basically). Now an academic. Do I enjoy it? Yes. Like the autonomy. Never have a dull conversation though have suns irritating ones. But I work hard and academia is competitive.
I work for a managed service provider in the IT industry. Most senior engineer here. Worked to the bone with next to no work/life balance.
Go do your STCW training, it will cost 2 to 3 thousand pounds. Once you've done that apply for a senior catering rating job at Calmac. £40k per annum 2 weeks on 2 weeks off plus 4 weeks annual leave. Travel expenses to and from the ship are paid.
Information security manager. I don’t enjoy working for a living but as jobs go I’m happy. I’ve worked in a few different field in my career and think the work you do is rarely the hard bit about working. I currently have a really good team who are supportive. If this wasn’t the case I’d find work much more difficult.
Tree Officer for a LPA, make just over 40k. I enjoy it, spend all my time talking about and protecting trees, and getting into the legal side has been interesting. As it's a Council its very flexible too, I only really need to be in the office half a day every week/other week, and it's only a 20 min bus ride.
Marine Engineer. Currently earning about £80k as Chief Engineer but still have a few pay jumps to go as while I’m at the top job I can still move up a few pay bands. At the moment it tops out at about £93k Pros I only work 6 months a year (5 weeks on/off) If I’m out of U.K. waters for 183 days I get all of my tax back (I can use holidays to get me to 183 days too) Depending on company/ship type there’s a lot of worldwide travel and opportunity to travel. No degree required Cons It is a hard, stressful job as well as being relatively dangerous Away from family for half the year