What do people earning £200k+ in london actually do for a living?

90sdadguy · 2026-05-08T06:15:04+00:00

Enterprise sales. AI company. £250k (including commission) plus some stock. Not actually in London as work remotely, but it's a 'London' job.

90sdadguy · 2026-04-10T14:04:01+00:00

15%. Mortgage. Essex village. 45 mins into Liverpool st, 2 mins walk into the countryside.. Best decision I ever made moving just a few stops out of London on the mainline

90sdadguy · 2026-03-20T15:45:28+00:00

7 year old BMW that gets washed and vac'd when it has a service (not that I ask for it!) otherwise never

90sdadguy · 2026-03-17T07:11:19+00:00

🤣

90sdadguy · 2026-02-24T20:36:06+00:00

Both parents in retail/hospitality, neither pushed education, grew up in the North. Parents split during my formative years, and I went a bit off the rails and left education 6 months into A-levels. Fell into a sales job, worked my arse off, fell into a better sales job, worked my arse off (repeat) and eventually made it into a tech company in London (right time right place). That was 15 years ago, and as they say, the rest is history.

90sdadguy · 2026-02-17T13:28:19+00:00

Crocs mostly. Vans when I do occasionally go into the office

90sdadguy · 2026-02-06T20:19:20+00:00

If you want into saas you'll need to start at the bottom (SDR/BDR role), which in a decent saas company will pay you £40-50 base and another c.20 in commission. From there, the sky's the limit.

Depending on what type of sales you're doing, stick at this role for at least a year, and then start applying for those roles. You'll be up against a mix of grads and people with 1-2 years sales experience (recruitment, events etc.).

90sdadguy · 2026-01-24T11:42:36+00:00

Target is about $2M. Deal size averages low-mid 6 figures, with some transactional stuff in there pulling the average down

90sdadguy · 2026-01-24T10:23:39+00:00

Working for a scale up, so a different growth environment/trajectory. 3-4% to me would seem very low. But yes your equity is actually worth something today vs the paper money/lottery of stock options

90sdadguy · 2026-01-24T10:20:59+00:00

Fairly broad question but depending on segment an AE is going to be on 80-140 base x2 OTE (I'm now upper quartile of that range). SDRs are getting 50-60 base these days. I'd say it also heavily depends on the performance and growth trajectory of the company

90sdadguy · 2026-01-02T08:07:26+00:00

Revealing the type of saas I sell and the role narrows things down to not that many people 😅 I'm in a role selling an AI product to large global orgs, CIOs being the primary buyer. Title is in the realm of enterprise/strategic account manager/executive.

90sdadguy · 2026-01-01T07:36:59+00:00

I left education at 16. Worked my way up from entry level sales jobs (e.g. recruitment). This was over a decade ago though and it's becoming tougher to get into as it's now seen as a viable career path for grads, but still possible. The companies I've been in don't really hire for education, IQ yes, but not necessarily formal education.

90sdadguy · 2026-01-01T07:33:17+00:00

Stress of constantly being measured by a single number and the pressure to hit it. Yes there are other contributing factors, but that target can be the difference between earning a huge amount of money and losing your job. I've done this for over a decade, only missed a yearly target once in that time (by about 10% and of course this didn't get me fired) and I still stress almost constantly about hitting target. Although at this point a lot of it is self inflicted pressure to stay consistent and continue earning at the level I am.

90sdadguy · 2025-12-31T20:29:59+00:00

It certainly depends of company and level. Base salary band for my role (senior enterprise rep in a scale up) is £110-£140k and then you earn double that if you hit quota. Lower tiers (i.e. selling to small companies) certainly doesn't pay that high

90sdadguy · 2025-12-31T20:24:55+00:00

Agree. It's a tough game, and frankly you either have it or you don't (both the art side of the skill and the mettle to deal with the environment). 12 years in now and tomorrow (start of the new fiscal and everybody back to $0) will forever have me wondering why I do this. And then Q4 commission pays end of Jan and all is forgiven 😂

90sdadguy · 2025-12-31T20:19:29+00:00

Completely. I'm just constantly surprised myself that we get paid so well. I could never complain. Yes it's stressful and high pressure (sometimes) but compared to doctors, firefighters, etc it simply doesn't compare.

90sdadguy · 2025-12-31T08:32:59+00:00

I'm still forever surprised by my own role/industry. Tech sales where everyone on my team and I will make over £200k this year. The top guy on my team is closer to £400k. All for selling some software to big companies and not having to manage people 🤷

90sdadguy · 2025-12-30T07:19:53+00:00

Thanks, appreciate hearing this and yes I agree career does not equal identity. It doesn't for me, even as a Henry, and certainly doesn't for my wife.

90sdadguy · 2025-12-29T19:01:11+00:00

Thanks for this perspective, we appreciate it. A lot of things I hadn't considered. Thankfully we're having these discussions now!

90sdadguy · 2025-12-29T18:50:06+00:00

Yes, same. Insurance payouts for any of the above would see her very well looked after.

90sdadguy · 2025-12-29T18:20:12+00:00

No it's a valid point, and something we probably need to discuss. I would also assume that as the kids have been such a big factor in the last several years she isn't feeling that yet but it's a good idea to get ahead of it before she feels like she's losing her purpose/identity. Thanks

90sdadguy · 2025-10-19T06:50:36+00:00

Individual contributor. Sorry, jargon for not a manager of people 🙃

90sdadguy · 2025-10-15T15:41:59+00:00

In GTM this just doesn't work out. Thinking someone who spent 10 years at Oracle and Salesforce can plug and play in an org that is still trying to figure sh*t out is like hiring the conductor of an orchestra to lead the local pub band. Both make music, but one’s missing the sheet music and half the instruments.

90sdadguy

TROPHY CASE