Plan a career in IT: goal - £100k PA.

Screeeech said:
My personal advice, would be to go for it if you can make the time and you have the drive to learn, but don't let money motivate you - let the curiosity guide you and if you do that, the money will come naturally.
Click to expand...

Took me far, far, far too long to realise this part. I had an amazing job which had amazing benefits which was a bit slower that I gave up because I could earn 10k more elsewhere which has none of the benefits and is super fast paced. Pro's and Cons to both but damn it was a mistake lol.
 
LiE said:
£100k in IT isn't easy, most senior roles sit around 80K for techies who are **** hot. I work in a niche area of IT where salaries are highly competitive due to not enough talent in the market. I've got 13 years experience doing this and to get £100K I'd need to move into a lead architect role. I'm on £68k now by choice but maybe moving and jumping up to a package over £80k.
Click to expand...

Wow I didn't realise that. I thought a lot of IT people earned more than that.

£100k+ is a funny target most people on 100k+ do salary sacrifices to get back under 100k to avoid the 60% tax hole.
 
If you want £100k, then the easiest route will be in the finance sector. Been a while since I've worked there but I was pulling over that in my first contract role doing noddy work messing with spreadsheets, with no prior finance experience. That was 10+ years ago.

No idea what the contract market is like these days. After a couple of contracts I moved to a perm role in HK for a few years that paid significantly more.
 
gingergundog said:
I like that your more ambitious than foxeye. Sorry I have nothing of value to add, I'm in the same boat, looked into coding and cloud certs to make a change, wish I had done something 10 years ago but its easy to just plod.
Click to expand...

Never too late to make a change in IT. I picked up a few Azure certs over the past 3 years which has helped my career path abit.
 
Last edited:
Freefaller said:
Wow I didn't realise that. I thought a lot of IT people earned more than that.

£100k+ is a funny target most people on 100k+ do salary sacrifices to get back under 100k to avoid the 60% tax hole.
Click to expand...

Most senior enterprise sales roles will pay over £100K basic in large tech companies like Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, Microsoft, SNow, Pega, AWS, Google etc. Most are typically on a 50/50 basic to commission split. Some roles 60/40 and some even 70/30 and then basics can be closer to 200K even more. Strat and Global roles also pay big money but there is something to bare in mind.

A senior enterprise sales person (Account Executive/Director) will typically have support sales people working alongside them. They love to tag themselves as the same but they are usually not. They are more junior and won't be earning at the same level as the overall Account Executive, outside perhaps some co-prime type roles (though all still paid well relative to UK earnings). Some large tech companies are known for 'brining a bus' as you can have multiple sales people on one deal as they all have their own 'products' or 'services' but the overall Account Executive owns the account and typically is the big earner, though it can be very complex.

LinkedIn is full of people with big titles who in fact are junior sales people or middle ground sales people in those roles seeking to up their profile and attract their next employer. You also have large support teams, SE's and SC's, Architects, Legal and many other roles who will support sales teams on big bits of business and all can earn over 100K easily if in the large companies at the top level.

Having said all this....you won't walk in off the street and land any of these roles without significant experience or expertise.
 
Last edited:
sigma said:
Regarding £100k, it'd be interesting to hear about people's experiences, especially:
Click to expand...

100k in IT is relatively easy as long as you arent going for entry or even mid level jobs. Hell, day rate experienced developers in mid london can command £500-800 a day quite easily. Fall onto the right PM role and you can 2x-3x that without many companies even batting an eyelid.

Get into specialist areas, highly desired certs or PM/PD/LD roles, and you are laughing to the bank.

On the flip side is some of these specialist areas or roles are absolutely soul crushingly boring, I would burn out 3-4 times a year quite easily. This is why my mental outlet has been buying nice cars to be able to step away and just go for an enjoyable drive.

Part of what ive done in the last 2-3 years is really roll back the boring yet high paid work I was involved in and take up projects I want to do, for example working for ocuk on the forums. The development work done on here and working with the mods, dons and ocuk has been much more rewarding on a personal level and I enjoy the work 100x more than the specialist db admin stuff.

Realistically, with my rental properties and assets, I could theoretically retire at this point in life (34 for those wondering :D). But am still actively looking for new business opportunities, contracts and just stuff thats of interest to me rather than the money it commands.

So my main advice from all of it is pursue something of interest over the money.
 
Last edited:
100k basic isn't the be all end all. Tbh it barely makes a difference but opens the door for next roles to increase it. I think the thing that makes it worthwhile is stock options, bonuses etc... 100k whilst it sounds impressive adds complications rather than solves problems imo.
 
Freefaller said:
100k basic isn't the be all end all. Tbh it barely makes a difference but opens the door for next roles to increase it. I think the thing that makes it worthwhile is stock options, bonuses etc... 100k whilst it sounds impressive adds complications rather than solves problems imo.
Click to expand...
It's peanuts in relative terms. Proper stock options is when it gets serious.
 
Bug One said:
Who cares about 100k......

3,000+ Junior Web Developer jobs in United States

Today's top 3,000+ Junior Web Developer jobs in United States. Leverage your professional network, and get hired. New Junior Web Developer jobs added daily.
www.linkedin.com www.linkedin.com

If only I lived closer.
Click to expand...

A 'friend'* worked there for a long time as a developer, back when developers spent 10+ weeks at races each season and worked on pretty cool stuff.

Wouldn't recommend, what others have alluded to is true. They do pay about £90k now I think, maybe not for that specific role though.

*plausible deniability :p

Back on topic as a software engineer in London your route to £100k is not that hard in my opinion. There are a lot of senior roles at fairly normal companies paying around that now. I think I've had 7-8 cold messages on linkedIn for jobs in that range since the new year. It's not like it was 5 or so years ago when only elite firms were paying that much. I think the hardest part will unsurprisingly be convincing a company to give you a chance at a junior role without experience or background in the industry. In terms of time I can tell you it took me a bit over 10 years to reach that level. But you can caveat that with the fact I spent far too much time at one company being paid poorly, and that those high paying jobs didn't even really seem to be out there 5+ years ago. I reckon someone landing their first junior engineer role now could get there in 5-7 years without being an exceptional talent. Those who are exceptional (or crazy driven) can be on £100k+ right out of university if they go into finance.
 
Housey said:
Some large tech companies are known for 'bringing a bus'
Click to expand...

Ah the memories of 10 years in sales in big blue :cry:

As has been mentioned a few times, tech pre sales/technical sales/sales engineer can be a nice role, fun and reasonably varied depending on what products/services you’re working with.
 
Isn't there a fellow forum member that works in pre-sales and earns £150k+ doing it?

I think it's important to realise that taxes take out a huge chunk. I've recently gone into the upper tax bracket (only just) and it is slightly demoralising knowing every extra £1 I earn will be taxed at 40%

First world problems I guess but I can see why family friends keep telling me to become self employed
 
Freefaller said:
100k basic isn't the be all end all. Tbh it barely makes a difference but opens the door for next roles to increase it. I think the thing that makes it worthwhile is stock options, bonuses etc... 100k whilst it sounds impressive adds complications rather than solves problems imo.
Click to expand...

I think Biggie Smalls put it rather eloquently in Mo Money Mo Problems
 
flibbage0 said:
Isn't there a fellow forum member that works in pre-sales and earns £150k+ doing it?

I think it's important to realise that taxes take out a huge chunk. I've recently gone into the upper tax bracket (only just) and it is slightly demoralising knowing every extra £1 I earn will be taxed at 40%

First world problems I guess but I can see why family friends keep telling me to become self employed
Click to expand...

Your effective tax is 60% after you go over 100k - https://www.nutmeg.com/nuggets/escape-the-60-tax-trap

That's why high pension contributions and salary sacrifices are often recommended - especially if you want to receive your tax free child care and 30hrs free child care.

Many people who don't understand would say "you earn over 100k why do you need childcare support?" - they don't realise that it's based on individuals not joint income. So if you 2 of you in the household earn 95k each, you're entitled to full child care relief/credits/child care etc... and you don't even get stung by the 60% tax trap. So as a household you're earning £190k and get full benefit of it all.

If 1 of you earns 101k and the other earns nothing - you get nothing other than 15hrs childcare. That's it. However as a household you're earning 90k less. How ****** up is that?

And 100k whilst it sounds a lot, if it's your sole income it doesn't magically make you well off depending on your situation. For an average family of 4, with a mortgage, car, etc... that 100k doesn't leave you with much per month - you're not suddenly going to be driving around in Ferraris and travelling first class everywhere. Admittedly, it does mean that you're likely to be okay (and be able to ride the current wave of cost of living) but it's not as if you're suddenly loaded.

flibbage0 said:
I think Biggie Smalls put it rather eloquently in Mo Money Mo Problems
Click to expand...

He was right. RIP.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom