The 5 year plan to £50k

[Nitefly]

Sales? No thank you

£100k for a strict 9-5 though with an hour lunch. I would not be snobby about that.

 

[Lil old me]

Yeah - my friend works in software sales pulls over £100k and says it's a complete doddle. Makes me feel a bit ill tbh

Not just about the money... got to factor in working hours and stress. Sometimes I do regret my career choice for these reasons (law related) - I earn what I consider to be quite a lot of money but, my god, there's got to be much easier ways of earning it.

I feel your pain. I am a social worker in a local authority mental health team and earn 30k. I have a degree and a master's (in social work) and I'm 2/3 way through another master's in mental health law. I'll be lucky to earn 40k even at team manager level which is a few years off and I'm 29. Another year of training will qualify me as an Approved Mental Health Professional which will bring in another ~£1,500 but that means at least 2 days a month on call for assessments under the Mental Health Act. High levels of risk and potentially getting home in the early hours of the next day after waiting hours for an ambulance!

That said, I love my job (despite the considerable stress and responsibility), and I obviously didn't go into this field for the money! However it did hurt when my cousins both came straight out of uni with non specialist degrees and ended up with 30k jobs straight away, one in recruitment and the other doing night time tech support coordination for a mobile phone company (she has no actual technical background, its coordinating the engineers from what I can work out).

 

[atpbx]

Yeah - my friend works in software sales pulls over £100k and says it's a complete doddle. Makes me feel a bit ill tbh

Not just about the money... got to factor in working hours and stress. Sometimes I do regret my career choice for these reasons (law related) - I earn what I consider to be quite a lot of money but, my god, there's got to be much easier ways of earning it.

There are a couple of people here pull in that kind of money, but they actually work at it.

One lass did 150k last year, good on her, but she is still putting quotes on the system at 10 and 11 o'clock at night, and I'm not doing that.

 

[Nitefly]

I feel your pain. I am a social worker in a local authority mental health team and earn 30k. I have a degree and a master's (in social work) and I'm 2/3 way through another master's in mental health law. I'll be lucky to earn 40k even at team manager level which is a few years off and I'm 29. Another year of training will qualify me as an Approved Mental Health Professional which will bring in another ~£1,500 but that means at least 2 days a month on call for assessments under the Mental Health Act. High levels of risk and potentially getting home in the early hours of the next day after waiting hours for an ambulance!

That said, I love my job (despite the considerable stress and responsibility), and I obviously didn't go into this field for the money! However it did hurt when my cousins both came straight out of uni with non specialist degrees and ended up with 30k jobs straight away, one in recruitment and the other doing night time tech support coordination for a mobile phone company (she has no actual technical background, its coordinating the engineers from what I can work out).

Thanks for sharing - yeah that does sound hard. Likewise, I knew what I was getting into so I can't really 'complain' and I could always change. I suppose there is quite a lot of job satisfaction when you 'pull something off' or feel like you are doing a 'hard job well'. Earning potential is very high but to get there you've got to be a minder (supervising juniors / managing people for long standing clients), a finder (bring in work) or a grinder (work like a mega-beast, work becomes life). Not sure I fit into any of those categories but we shall see!

"I thought I was out... but they pulled me back in"

 

[icehot]

£100k for a strict 9-5 though with an hour lunch. I would not be snobby about that.

Its certainly not a strict 9-5 in IT Sales / Pre-Sales ! That said, it comes down to the money and putting things in perspective. I have friends working all hours of the week and sadly do not earn anywhere near what a career/job in IT sales would.

World is unfair right?

 

[icehot]

There are a couple of people here pull in that kind of money, but they actually work at it.

One lass did 150k last year, good on her, but she is still putting quotes on the system at 10 and 11 o'clock at night, and I'm not doing that.

Are you saying you wouldn't want to earn that type of money if it meant a few nights a year clicking around a quote system and sending an email?

 

[RoboCod]

£100k for a strict 9-5 though with an hour lunch. I would not be snobby about that.

That's good if true then. The impression I always got of sales is long hours, constant crap from the hierarchy to do more, selling your soul and just generally doing a sod awful job. Massively generalising of course.

 

[elmarko]

32 years old here, data scientist. 47k, going up to 52k in my current band if I sit it out for a couple of years.

I studied music & art so no formal qualifications in the field but have a long history of roles in various analytical positions (asset trading, load balancing & customer/business behaviour prediction).

If I took the time to get qualified I could get a contracting role in London for more than double the money doing the exact same job (£550/650+ a day), but I do like the pace of life here & sometimes feel too old to go back into education.

It's a field very much in demand & if anybody was considering retraining then data science isn't a bad shout. More-so when you consider us leaving the EU & how frequently we have to recruit from the EU for experienced data scientists.

 

[Lil old me]

Thanks for sharing - yeah that does sound hard. Likewise, I knew what I was getting into so I can't really 'complain' and I could always change. I suppose there is quite a lot of job satisfaction when you 'pull something off' or feel like you are doing a 'hard job well'. Earning potential is very high but to get there you've got to be a minder (supervising juniors / managing people for long standing clients), a finder (bring in work) or a grinder (work like a mega-beast, work becomes life). Not sure I fit into any of those categories but we shall see!

"I thought I was out... but they pulled me back in"

Oh definitely, getting someone the help they need and making their life that little bit better is an amazing feeling. For example this week I managed to get one of my service users to the GP so he could get some help, then negotiated with the GP (not easy!) for him to be seen urgently by the mental health team. It might not sound like much, and that it should just happen without having to fight, but that's not how the system works unfortunately.

Also unfortunately such successes are rare and often we end up being reactive all the time, while managing risky situations in an under resourced system.

As for progression, as mentioned in my last post, team managers earn about 40k. But instead of having an individual case load of 18-25 service users they will be managing a team of 7-8 who all have those case loads each, so pretty much 160 people currently active. Plus the waiting list (100 odd), plus urgent cases, plus people we need to review (another 100ish), and they are responsible for all of them ultimately if something goes wrong, which thankfully it seldom does, but it could. And that's with my team being small and rural. The local city team have case loads of 40+ with more staff so you're looking at well past 500, all under 1 manager and 1 deputy manager on less than my cousins after them being out of uni for just a few years!

 

[grudas]

Are you saying you wouldn't want to earn that type of money if it meant a few nights a year clicking around a quote system and sending an email?

I think a few is probably equal to most if it was a few everyone would do it. But I guess some are like me and value their time out of work. I can't imagine working past 6pm regularly for e.g. I've got so many things I want to do and try that if I did anything other than 9-5 I'd be unhappy.

 

[Sui]

I'm 28 and currently sitting around 27k.

I only have 3 ACCA exams left until I'm qualified so that will open some doors up for me, I'm just not sure which path to follow once I finally get there. I could have done this all much sooner, but I didn't really find the motivation till late on.

 

[Clav]

@Telecaster: If you really are anything like me, then my sincere commiserations

I can only speak for myself in answering grudas. I'm not sure what being "happy in my own skin" means, or feels like. I do know that I've never had any confidence or self-belief, and that most of that stems from a sincere belief that I'm completely deficient in <something> that other "normal" people possess. I can't put my finger on what it is, but I keep telling myself I must be different, because the situation I'm in is completely abnormal, and far from ideal. How can everyone else be so at ease in this world, when to me this world feels completely alien. Everything from talking to people, to getting a job, to you name it... it all feels like it's not for me. Like it's above and beyond me. Incomprehensible. Futile.

I honestly can't see a way forwards in many aspects of my life, from work to relationships. It's maddening.

How can you do anything when everything seems futile. Impossible. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! OK it's late and (when I'm tired) my brain loses its ability to filter out the crap I should post from the crap I shouldn't, so I should definitely stop posting for today. Nobody wants to hear my self-indulgent crap anyhow.

But telling me to "be positive" is like telling a monkey to fly to the moon Something's just wired all wrong up there. My brain is fubar

Do you honestly believe that nobody here who has posted their career successes feels like this? Either completely or to some degree?

 

[dowie]

I've no idea what it is, just explaining how I feel.

I've no interest in relationships with people, I try to avoid them at all costs which is hard at work.

might be worth speaking to someone about it and getting tested, if it potentially is affecting your life to quite a significant extent then some guidance on how to deal with it etc.. could potentially help you a lot

41 no qualifications, i currently work in sales, i am due to pull in £60k this year if I just carry on bumbling along.

I keep ending up doing it as it doesn't really take any effort, and I like that.

that was one potential suggestion for the OP - certainly sales is an area where people with limited qualifications/education can make decent money, though while you say it comes easy it certainly isn't for everyone, others can find it very stressful - having a decent EQ is rather helpful

 

[RoboCod]

Feel free to rephrase it for me

By all means, sir.

Well our firm is going through a massive and ambitious growth plan,

We're planning to make more money

to move up the ranks in the industry capitalising on our expertise and multidisciplinary skills

And make more money

Owing to this massive change in business strategy, we need to manage a few workstreams,

We're going to sack some people and hire some people.

such as:

• idea management (ideas lead to solutions/innovation and opportunities)
• knowledge and knowledge management
• integration of a common data environment (our industry is awful at sharing information, and single source of truth)
• achieving BIM level 2

The good ideas club have made a bunch of good ideas and we're going to make them happen.

Those are some of the main ones, clearly there is a commercial transformation project ongoing, improving our CRM and integrating that into our CDE, financial transformation and there is even an IT transformation project on going. All of this ties in together to be part of our transformational journey.

We're sacking some people, cutting costs where we can and buying some new computers. This is all to make more money.

Innovations come from ideas, ideas provide potentially solutions to problems, opportunities to try new things, new processes/procedures/materials/ways of working etc.... Ideas can be disruptive, and we have to be agile enough to change how we work to take on board these opportunities without them turning into blockers or halting how we work

Good ideas are good, bad ideas are bad. We want everyone to listen to the good ideas and carry them out, otherwise we want them to just shut up and get on with their work.

We consider innovation to be the process of translating an idea, invention or process into a product or service that creates value or for which customers will pay - for that we need to have our bid teams, work winning teams, business development teams, design teams, engineering teams, commercial teams, PR teams, comms teams, operations teams, plant teams, basically everyone... on board to be part of these new processes/products/services as they are rolled out, or trialled, or developed. Quite a task!

What we need are teams. Lots of teams! And we need those teams to all work together as part of the big team, just like any other company, organisation, agency, force. If we all work together well, we complete lots of tasks (and make more money).

If we're not all aligned with one another, and considering we are multi-national, if the arse doesn't know what the elbow is doing, and we offer different pricing models, different solutions, or promise to deliver things we have no capability in delivering, we end up not making any profit in what is already a very low yield industry. Engineering firms consider anything between 1.5-3% fantastic. We're aiming to get as close to 10% as possible, something which is not common in our industry at all.

Despite there being lots of teams, everyone needs to remember who the boss is and follow the rules. If we don't follow the rules, we won't make any money and we'll probably sack you to.

The design houses, and consultants can achieve this, but their roles are specialist,

These guys think they're soooo bloody special and important to the company. That's why we pay them lots.

we have a clear opportunity to improve our business, by reducing inefficiencies, bring ideas to life, and work collaboratively to achieve this.

We have a clear opportunity to improve by sacking people we don't need, using good ideas and working together.

Sounds simple,

And it is.

but tying all these disciplines together in a very silo'ed industry is a massive challenge.

People in our industry are turds, we don't share information or knowledge, or anything for that matter. This makes change stuff difficult.

Hence the change management piece - so I'm doing a lot of work with our cultural development team, our organisational effectiveness team, as well as spending a fair amount of time, with my peers in the senior leadership team making them understand that change, innovation, culture is nurtured from the top and grown from the bottom - and we need to meet them halfway. Often middle management is where a lot of the blockers to change/innovation happens

So this is why we're working harder to change things. I'm working with all our teams and at the same time making the grunts at the bottom feel valued.

Some people are open to changing things, some people are stubborn old gits who don't like change. We'd like to sack them people but we probably can't.

So this is where I try and transcend the business, and fortunately I have a strong comms team on my side,

So this is where I do a lot of driving around the country. I'm supported by a good team, to be honest, they make me look good.

as well as a group of like minded individuals who are all bought into our change programme and business growth plan. .

I've also let a few people who conform with my ideas into my team. Back skuttle me, you'll get a job.

We're still a family business and not a PLC, so it does give us a bit of freedom to explore opportunities more quickly

We sometimes get away with doing things we normally wouldn't as a PLC. So we can make more money quickly.

For example, the company didn't exploit it's R&D tax relief - it didn't realise it could. Engineers solve problems every day, and don't talk about it, and that leads to a huge loss of opportunity across the business

.

Some IDIOT didn't realise this heap of money we were entitled to. We should have sacked that guy!

I've retrospectively secured nearly £1m of R&D relief for 2015...

Im awesome. I save/make the company money.

We just need to make that sort of behaviour organic, encourage safe risk taking, encourage openness, and we are building the tools (CDE, knowledge management, BIM level 2, etc..) to allow us to better do it.

We need more people to be more awesome like me and save/make the company money.

The tools are just enablers, they don't magically create a culture of collaboration and innovation - but they make information easier to handle and help people help themselves as well as hopefully working together more effectively! There is a lot of human interaction and comms still required to keep this thing alive, and to continue to add value.

People don't magically become awesome like me. We need to train people, sack people and buy newer computers. Then we'll make more money.

This is just a very short overview - happy to chat more in depth off-line

This is business bingo. If you want me to put everything in layman's, give me a call and we'll go for a beer, because maintaining this level of business bingo hurts my head as much as it does yours.

 

[Nitefly]

Its certainly not a strict 9-5 in IT Sales / Pre-Sales ! That said, it comes down to the money and putting things in perspective. I have friends working all hours of the week and sadly do not earn anywhere near what a career/job in IT sales would.

World is unfair right?

Perhaps I exaggerated but he does mock me all the time for it

@RoboCod lol!

 

[dowie]

haha good effort @RoboCod

 

[Puzzled]

Do you honestly believe that nobody here who has posted their career successes feels like this? Either completely or to some degree?

Fake it until you make it, then keep faking it or you might get caught out

I do feel I missed the lesson at school where people learned enthusiasm for the daily grind. Plus you look at some of these job titles and think "what on earth is that", then they explain and I'm still left thinking "do they know what it means or just making up words to sound like they do".

I blame recruitment but I miss the world where job titles actually described the job.

 

[icehot]

I think a few is probably equal to most if it was a few everyone would do it. But I guess some are like me and value their time out of work. I can't imagine working past 6pm regularly for e.g. I've got so many things I want to do and try that if I did anything other than 9-5 I'd be unhappy.

I did IT Sales for 2 years and earned more money than I ever thought I would. I've always got more joy out of being a techie so made a move to Pre-Sales and haven't looked back since.

My sales manager at the same said this to me when I was confirming I was leaving sales and I will never ever forget it..... "Sean, do you prefer to drink champagne or orange juice?"

That's IT Sales for you ! An old boys club where some of the guys I work with take home over £500k a year...... mental.

 

[Rifte]

For all intents and purposes I had a good job when I worked in the UK according to the national average and my peers.

Management consultancy and I was on just under 70k with a number of really nice perks.

Enthusiasm was always my issue though, and I could never seem to get enthusiastic working for somebody else, the commute, the grind, it killed me.

By the time I woke up (5am usually) and got back around 8pm I was exhausted and I was able to offer little quality time to my young family.

A large part of it was the commute, and because of some long term issues with my vision , ocular concentration for long periods of time (i.e driving) exhausted me.

My father was self employed, my grandfather and great grandfather were self employed, and it was me that went against the grain until a few years ago.

When I started my own company the first 100 quid I earnt felt so much better than anything I have ever earnt to date in my career.

It was tough finding the time and also initially financing the startup costs, but I managed

Once I got to the stage where I could support my family on my second income I handed in my notice and moved into it full time. 6 months later I migrated to where my growth was.....India.

It took me a few years to get to the stage where I earnt more than I did in the UK, but what was very apparent was that even when I did earn less I enjoyed my lifestyle a hell of a lot more than I did when I was working for someone else.

I always thought it was money that motivated me......it isnt.

 

[krooton]

34, didn't go to uni, just got a diploma in programming (VB and SQL) when I was 18.

Moved to the UK at 19, and bumbled along working retail (internet cafe, then mobile retailer) then call centre (mobile retailer) then change management (mobile retailer) then change management (cruise company) then analyst (cruise company).

I don't work particularily hard (though I think that is more down to things coming naturally to me), and the only additional training I have had was Prince2 back in 2012.

I'm happily beating my self-set target of earning at least £1k per how many years old I am, and am apparently up for a promotion pretty soon, so even more money, woot!

Could I earn more? Sure, but that would involve more effort and stress than I am willing to endure, I like the balance I have now.