Depends how and where you're paid, I'm currently being paid in Euros whilst working in Sweden, so am paying Swedish tax but still making NI contributions (it's managed by a payroll company) so is usually based on individual circumstances.
The 5 year plan to £50k
- Thread starter FoxEye
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Soldato
I see.
What if you're working and living in places like the Cayman Islands or Dubai?
Will do some research on this over the weekend. Thought I'd ask here first.
What if you're working and living in places like the Cayman Islands or Dubai?
Will do some research on this over the weekend. Thought I'd ask here first.
When I used to work for a UK company I was still taxed in the UK. I no longer work for a UK company and now pay half as much tax as I used to.
It depends who employs you, where your contract is based, how close your ties to the UK are (property, days per year spent there etc), where you live, etc. It's usually a complete mess and no governments seem equipped to deal with it. It's far simpler (and cheaper) now that I am completely cut off from the UK.
It also depends on what stage you're at in your career. I'd much rather earn £50k a year working massive hours in an expensive city if I was learning an awful lot and building towards a very definite career, rather than earning less doing a 9-5 in a more regional environment.
If those long hours meant building a career that allowed me to (semi-)retire before the age of 50, I think I'd always pursue that option over a 9-5 job that kept me working into my late 60s.
inside/outside Europe doesn't make any difference AFAIK
unlike the US the UK doesn't tax British Citizens when they move overseas
if you're just doing some temporary jobs overseas though and still resident in the UK/paying UK income tax then yes you generally need to pay that on all your income
this might be a good start:
https://www.gov.uk/tax-foreign-income/residence
you might want to get some professional advice
It depends where the HMRC decides you're domiciled for tax purposes. Like I said, it's complicated.
Soldato
Good! That returned money will hopefully afford a future generation to be able to study and move abroad.They still chase you for student loan payments though
I can relate, I used to be in a high pressured job that eventually burnt me out.
You don't have to stay in a job for 12 months if it's that bad there. All my positions have come to a natural end at around 24 months, that's when projects start to cool down and I start getting bored - but if I wasn't happy, I wouldn't hesitate to leave for a better opportunity.
Either make it work for you, or leave before it makes you ill. Life is too short!
Thab
I think I will stay with this job until next year. Will then see what is available through agencies. I might have a 10/15k drop in salary and I will have to move out of my parents house, meaning I won't save as much BUT I am 100% sure I'll be happier
I think I will stay with this job until next year. Will then see what is available through agencies. I might have a 10/15k drop in salary and I will have to move out of my parents house, meaning I won't save as much BUT I am 100% sure I'll be happier
Some interesting journeys on here 
I'm an in-house solicitor at a big multi-national and (think) I've done relatively well. Not a huge number of solicitors on here I believe so not going into much detail at the moment, but happy to give info/answer questions if anyone has any. My path, in brief, was: Moved here from India in 2004 to do A-levels -> uni -> GDL and LPC -> internship at the big multi-national -> internship extended -> paralegal -> trainee solicitor -> qualified solicitor. Internship to (now) 3 years qualified was about 6.5 years overall. I did a few different roles/took advantage of opportunities within these roles, but all within legal.
I'm an in-house solicitor at a big multi-national and (think) I've done relatively well. Not a huge number of solicitors on here I believe so not going into much detail at the moment, but happy to give info/answer questions if anyone has any. My path, in brief, was: Moved here from India in 2004 to do A-levels -> uni -> GDL and LPC -> internship at the big multi-national -> internship extended -> paralegal -> trainee solicitor -> qualified solicitor. Internship to (now) 3 years qualified was about 6.5 years overall. I did a few different roles/took advantage of opportunities within these roles, but all within legal.
Thought I'd add my career path here - realise this was requested a while ago but I've been sitting on this post as I've been expecting some good news about a potential promotion I wanted to hold off until I got that landed.
1999 - Left school with 9 A-C grades, not particularly great but considering the school I went to thats quite an achievement.
2001 - Left college, a C in A-Level in Accountancy and nothing else to show for it. I discovered alcohol, women and freedom, it didn't end well for me.
2001 to 2002 - My first real job, an entry level accounting role at a small metals traders. The company ceased trading after around 6 months into my tenure, the owner really didn't need the money and it was showing in his work ethic which fed down to the rest of the team. He decided to shut the business down and moved to Monaco.
2002 to 2010 - I took a temporary job working for Vodafone to bring some cash in while I looked for something better. I spent the best part of 8 years working there, from entry level up to acting Manager for various stores across the network. Horrible job, earnings capping out not much north of £30k, constant pressure to achieve across more metrics than you can reasonably keep track of, staying here as long as I did was one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made.
2010 - First proper accountancy role, a very close friend of mine managed to land me an interview at his place and I was able to get a job. Started on £30k which is probably far more than I was worth at the time but I saw this as my opportunity to start earning a decent wage.
2011 - Promoted to Financial Reporting Accountant, salary bump to ~£35k, more resposibility, expanding job role, things are looking up.
2012-2013 - Spent two years being an absolute **** up. Break down of my marriage, excessive weight gain, awful performance at work for which I should have been fired on about 90 different occasions, awful.
2014 - Decided it was time to turn things around, started working on my health, work performance improved drastically, again started hoovering up all the responsibility I could. With incremental rises I was probably sitting on £37.5k at this point.
2015 - Best year I've ever had in a job, Financial Controller left and I assumed a sizable chunk of his responsibility, really went above and beyond for the entire year. Granted a ton more responsibility to deliver the reporting track of a $100m USD underwriting system the company decided to purchase... expectation was that I'd put in the work and the money would follow.
2016 - Overlooked for promotion in favour of another candidate, no bonus, 3% incremental pay rise despite all the extra responsibility I'd taken on, decided at the start of the year that I'd had enough. Realised that potentially my bad two years had really burnt my bridges with my employer and it was time to move on.
Feb 2016 - Moved to a more local insurance company as their Insurance Reporting Accountant, salary bumped to £43.5k. The insurance reporting side was a bit of a mess, it was clear that the person in the role before me wasn't suited to it, they didn't understand the basics of insurance reporting and there was going to be a lot of work involved to get things right. I think this was the point that I actually realised I was good at this. Spent 18 months completely overhauling the insurance reporting process, more automation, more analysis, more control and doing a spot of empire building to bring everything under my control.
June 2017 - Promoted to Solvency II reporting accountant, salary bump to £55k - transitioning into the new role to provide business expertise to our Solvency II consultants to ensure the figures we're filing to the regulator were in better shape than they have been previously. All the business as usual monthly insurance reporting was handed down to a new member of staff who joined the team while I still took care of the more complicated one-off and ad-hoc stuff.
June 2018 - Solvency II role became drastically more involved as time went on, a lot more than it was ever pitched to me as being and we moved from being the team assisting the local regulatory experts on producing the numbers to having ownership of the numbers. Last six months have been hell, steepest learning curve I've ever faced with a long way to go. Off the back of the effort promoted to Solvency II Reporting Manager with two people working under me, decent salary bump, up an employee grade, contractual bonus, whole package is now worth between £75k - £80k but now is the point that I really need to step up and prove that I'm worth what I'm being paid. I'm still only a finalist, with two exams to go, I would not be able to command a salary like this anywhere else, so I have to make this work.
As you can see, bit of a strange career journey, the wasted years at Vodafone were a killer, hard to imagine where I would be without all that wasted time. With that said I'm very satisfied about where I've landed now, and I'm incredibly thankful to my friend who managed to get me out of Vodafone, I could easily still be running stores, hating every single working day and earning buttons for the privaledge.
1999 - Left school with 9 A-C grades, not particularly great but considering the school I went to thats quite an achievement.
2001 - Left college, a C in A-Level in Accountancy and nothing else to show for it. I discovered alcohol, women and freedom, it didn't end well for me.
2001 to 2002 - My first real job, an entry level accounting role at a small metals traders. The company ceased trading after around 6 months into my tenure, the owner really didn't need the money and it was showing in his work ethic which fed down to the rest of the team. He decided to shut the business down and moved to Monaco.
2002 to 2010 - I took a temporary job working for Vodafone to bring some cash in while I looked for something better. I spent the best part of 8 years working there, from entry level up to acting Manager for various stores across the network. Horrible job, earnings capping out not much north of £30k, constant pressure to achieve across more metrics than you can reasonably keep track of, staying here as long as I did was one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made.
2010 - First proper accountancy role, a very close friend of mine managed to land me an interview at his place and I was able to get a job. Started on £30k which is probably far more than I was worth at the time but I saw this as my opportunity to start earning a decent wage.
2011 - Promoted to Financial Reporting Accountant, salary bump to ~£35k, more resposibility, expanding job role, things are looking up.
2012-2013 - Spent two years being an absolute **** up. Break down of my marriage, excessive weight gain, awful performance at work for which I should have been fired on about 90 different occasions, awful.
2014 - Decided it was time to turn things around, started working on my health, work performance improved drastically, again started hoovering up all the responsibility I could. With incremental rises I was probably sitting on £37.5k at this point.
2015 - Best year I've ever had in a job, Financial Controller left and I assumed a sizable chunk of his responsibility, really went above and beyond for the entire year. Granted a ton more responsibility to deliver the reporting track of a $100m USD underwriting system the company decided to purchase... expectation was that I'd put in the work and the money would follow.
2016 - Overlooked for promotion in favour of another candidate, no bonus, 3% incremental pay rise despite all the extra responsibility I'd taken on, decided at the start of the year that I'd had enough. Realised that potentially my bad two years had really burnt my bridges with my employer and it was time to move on.
Feb 2016 - Moved to a more local insurance company as their Insurance Reporting Accountant, salary bumped to £43.5k. The insurance reporting side was a bit of a mess, it was clear that the person in the role before me wasn't suited to it, they didn't understand the basics of insurance reporting and there was going to be a lot of work involved to get things right. I think this was the point that I actually realised I was good at this. Spent 18 months completely overhauling the insurance reporting process, more automation, more analysis, more control and doing a spot of empire building to bring everything under my control.
June 2017 - Promoted to Solvency II reporting accountant, salary bump to £55k - transitioning into the new role to provide business expertise to our Solvency II consultants to ensure the figures we're filing to the regulator were in better shape than they have been previously. All the business as usual monthly insurance reporting was handed down to a new member of staff who joined the team while I still took care of the more complicated one-off and ad-hoc stuff.
June 2018 - Solvency II role became drastically more involved as time went on, a lot more than it was ever pitched to me as being and we moved from being the team assisting the local regulatory experts on producing the numbers to having ownership of the numbers. Last six months have been hell, steepest learning curve I've ever faced with a long way to go. Off the back of the effort promoted to Solvency II Reporting Manager with two people working under me, decent salary bump, up an employee grade, contractual bonus, whole package is now worth between £75k - £80k but now is the point that I really need to step up and prove that I'm worth what I'm being paid. I'm still only a finalist, with two exams to go, I would not be able to command a salary like this anywhere else, so I have to make this work.
As you can see, bit of a strange career journey, the wasted years at Vodafone were a killer, hard to imagine where I would be without all that wasted time. With that said I'm very satisfied about where I've landed now, and I'm incredibly thankful to my friend who managed to get me out of Vodafone, I could easily still be running stores, hating every single working day and earning buttons for the privaledge.
It's a right ****** when you come to your senses and realise that you've spent far too long in the wrong role or at the wrong firm. Best reaction you can make is to forge ahead down a new path and it looks like you've done exactly that. Solvency II is an interesting thing - we've been doing a lot of work in the insurance space of late, seems to be a more interesting and progressive part of the financial markets at present.
Congrats
Soldato
Some great stories here.
I remember reading this thread around the time when it started as I was looking at something similar. I had a good job, it was decent money and had great perks (running family business). It just wasn't the job for me and I wanted to pursue my own thing .
June 2015, I took a big pay cut and embarked on a career as a £20k p/a trainee functional consultant for a Microsoft partner implementing Dynamics AX. No prior IT knowledge, just a background in business, common sense and a logical approach to things. I stayed at that wage for 12 months and commuted 80 miles per day, 5 days a week.
On Monday I start at a new partner for the same role (obviously not trainee!) and will be implementing Dynamics 365 (new version of AX) and have now tripled my salary in as many years.
Feeling really good at the moment and excited about moving up the ranks even more
I remember reading this thread around the time when it started as I was looking at something similar. I had a good job, it was decent money and had great perks (running family business). It just wasn't the job for me and I wanted to pursue my own thing .
June 2015, I took a big pay cut and embarked on a career as a £20k p/a trainee functional consultant for a Microsoft partner implementing Dynamics AX. No prior IT knowledge, just a background in business, common sense and a logical approach to things. I stayed at that wage for 12 months and commuted 80 miles per day, 5 days a week.
On Monday I start at a new partner for the same role (obviously not trainee!) and will be implementing Dynamics 365 (new version of AX) and have now tripled my salary in as many years.
Feeling really good at the moment and excited about moving up the ranks even more
2016: Graduated uni with a degree in accountancy and finance.
2017: 23 years old. Started on a graduate scheme at £32k as a trainee accountant whilst being put through the professional exams.
2019: Depending if I pass the exams (and don't get sacked for failing!) should be on around £50k after qualifying. More if I decide to stay with the company but relocate to London.
2017: 23 years old. Started on a graduate scheme at £32k as a trainee accountant whilst being put through the professional exams.
2019: Depending if I pass the exams (and don't get sacked for failing!) should be on around £50k after qualifying. More if I decide to stay with the company but relocate to London.
Very genorous trainee scheme. I started mine at 19k and I'm with 6 months of qualifying and still wouldn't be on the salary you started on.
Seems my career is moving down data analytics, BI and visualisations away from auditing. Bit unsure because although I enjoy it, it's a sizeable departure from finance/audit.
Man of Honour
I was actually talking to a friend about this at the weekend, he's got a degree in accounting and finance but has spent a lot of time flopping about trying to be a superstar DJ (he's not bad to be fair but it's never going to be a full time job) and working in a couple of payday loan style places.
His idea was the money places would give him some experience to step up into a proper accounting role and I suppose he's not wrong from what he says he ends up doing day to day but he's just not taken the bull by the horns and stepped out to actually try and use that experience.
That's the kicker, you've got to risk it for a biscuit if you actually want to get anywhere.
I started on a placement type thing exactly this time 6 years ago, for the best part of a year the pay was dross about 11k IIRC but the experience was building, 2 job hops since and my aim is to be on quadruple that within the next couple of months in my current position.
It's not mega money but my aim back then was to hit £30k by the time I was 30 which is next month and I'm well passed that at the moment with a job that is pretty strictly 8-430 5 days a week, no out of hours, no daft overtime, no weekends, basically pretty hassle free which is more important to me than £50k but living to work.
His idea was the money places would give him some experience to step up into a proper accounting role and I suppose he's not wrong from what he says he ends up doing day to day but he's just not taken the bull by the horns and stepped out to actually try and use that experience.
That's the kicker, you've got to risk it for a biscuit if you actually want to get anywhere.
I started on a placement type thing exactly this time 6 years ago, for the best part of a year the pay was dross about 11k IIRC but the experience was building, 2 job hops since and my aim is to be on quadruple that within the next couple of months in my current position.
It's not mega money but my aim back then was to hit £30k by the time I was 30 which is next month and I'm well passed that at the moment with a job that is pretty strictly 8-430 5 days a week, no out of hours, no daft overtime, no weekends, basically pretty hassle free which is more important to me than £50k but living to work.
Well I just hung up my blues for the last time. This is either gonna be amazeballs or I'm gonna end up in blues again, let's hope it's the former. I'm just so glad to be rid of the blues once and for all, that uniform is seriously degrading and depressing, makes me feel like trash. Now I can wear suits 
My manager had his last little dig this afternoon, didn't even say goodbye but had me escorted off site like a filthy crim. I think jealousy may be involved
My manager had his last little dig this afternoon, didn't even say goodbye but had me escorted off site like a filthy crim. I think jealousy may be involved
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