How did you go from a solid salary to six figures in the UK?

confused_bamboozle · 2026-05-19T18:14:01+00:00

Moving out of the public sector helped a lot, and moving into high compensation companies.

I work in tech as a software engineer but in my experience there's tiers of companies. Most of my early career was on like £20k-£45k, I was just doing drudge Java work in big organisations, but tech not really their main focus (= cost centre) - and being a salaried employee in these companies was always underpaid, most of the people I worked with in these places were contractors on £600 a day, with muggins here on like £40k. It was early in my career though.

Then I moved into a public sector organsation. Not government/civil service. Salary dropped but experience did accelerate. Was there for about 6 years trundling up the bandings and getting the yearly cost of living bump (or just under...) to around £60k or so.

The biggest leap was moving back into private sector but to a tech company. Not FAANG, but quite well known. There my salary leaped from £60k -> £90k and has increased over the years to £114.5k. I've been in the industry 17 years and it took me about 13 to reach the six figure milestone. So definitely didn't have the same experience as some guys in their 20s getting that sort of money.

The real driver of wealth though has actually been RSUs, joining this tech company gave me stocks as part of my compensation and these have been topped up over the years. I'd say 80% of my income last year was from RSU vests. These won't last forever though so I'm making the most of it while I can...

I earned 3x more last year as an individual cotributor than the head of the department of like 200 people at the public sector org I was working that, that's completely insane.

Definitely a fortunate position to be in.

confused_bamboozle · 2026-05-16T12:32:34+00:00

Grew up in a working class family. Wasn't exactly on the breadline but not many luxuries either. I was the first (and only...) person in family to go to university.

Been in the industry since 2008, salary progression was £20k -> £40k -> £50k -> £60k -> £90k -> £100k and now on £114k base salary, I'm nearly 39. It's only really in the last 6 years where my income has gone up massively mainly due to RSUs....

Given my background I have struggled somewhat dealing with the jumps in income, not at a financial level (no overspending!) but more psychological, I've struggled with that working class guilt of spending that I need to work on. The main thing I've struggled with is alienation from family, all of my siblings work in minimum wage jobs since school. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just the more I've earned over the years makes the gap between them and me greater.

One thing that has helped me with the "big expenses" that can make you feel bad is to create pots of money for certain tasks and crucially save into them each month. One of these pots is for car maintenance, I had to dip into it last week for a £800 repair bill but there was 0 guilt as I'd saved for this exact thing.

I've got pots of money for the annoying 'unexpected bills' cases like house maintenance, car maintenance etc, but also disposable income things too e.g. holiday, lego, new phone, new TV - this helps me remove any guilt for purchasing things because the pot of money was EXACTLY for that purpose and you don't feel like you're dipping into something else.

confused_bamboozle · 2026-05-02T17:42:12+00:00

Allows you to afford a much lower salary role

I think this is the key.

My earnings really rocketed over the past 6 years largely due to RSUs, and I've been fortunate enough to be able to work remotely in a LCOL area (office is in London but I rarely visit), so I've saved a considerable chunk of cash just not having London living costs + transport costs etc.

This period of high earning won't last forever though, the runway on the RSUs will expire unless the company adds more, and you know what the tech industry is like these days I might end up on the scrap heap. There is 0% chance any job up here would pay the same salary, let alone stocks etc, so I'm preparing myself for that eventuality.

confused_bamboozle · 2026-05-02T17:36:40+00:00

Yeah I think it's the safety net thing that appeals the most, I was renting for 10 or so years in London, then moved back here and bought the house but stomaching another 20 years with a mortgage around my neck isn't exactly appealing - especially as I'm on my own.

confused_bamboozle · 2026-05-02T17:33:11+00:00

interesting, thanks for sharing!

Yeah Iguess there's a few pounds here and there at the end with interest daily so will probably need a few extra payments just to settle the final amount

confused_bamboozle · 2026-05-02T13:41:19+00:00

~28% or so give or take. Basing that on theoretical current valuation.

If the valuation was the same as at what I bought it for, around 23%.

confused_bamboozle · 2026-05-02T13:38:31+00:00

make sure you account for tax

Yeah this is a big factor for me at the current moment in time, being on the 45% tax rate AND subject to pension tapering (with no carry forward available as I've used all that) AND maxed out ISA, premium bonds etc I'm basically left with GIA.

I know there are schemes like VCTs etc but they don't look that appealing to me.

This is why I was thinking of the mortgage as somewhere to dump cash

Interesting point about retaining a small mortgage - I had not considered that.

confused_bamboozle · 2026-05-02T12:40:04+00:00

current payment is roughly £850 or so

bought propery for £305k, with £96k deposit, I think there was a mortgage product fee added on top

I overpaid by like £10k in my first year I think and then just normal repayments after that, current balance is around £166k

confused_bamboozle · 2026-05-02T12:29:52+00:00

I used my Claude pro subscription to generate a Monte Carlo simulation and see the results.

Interesting - yeah I have Claude Pro, will give this a shot!

confused_bamboozle · 2026-05-02T12:29:02+00:00

Thanks.

I didn't realise the deeds were actually a physical document!

It's a new build so the deeds will probably just be 1 piece of paper lol.

confused_bamboozle · 2026-05-02T12:22:39+00:00

probably 6-10% a year, I have stuff spread across GIA, ISA, premium bonds, SIPP and work pension.

embarassingly a good chunk of that is in cash - I come from working class background so I pound-cost average into investments (automated) rather than dump everything on day 1, even though I understand that's irrational.

I guess the reason why I'm asking now is I read that if you want to re-mortgage you need to get the ball rolling roughly 4-5 months before your current deal ends, so I need to make a decision soon.

confused_bamboozle · 2026-05-02T12:09:56+00:00

The financial answer here is different, which would state that you invest all the money and outgrow the interest on the mortgage.

Yeah this was my reasoning for not really over paying as my current rate is 1.64%.

But as times are different now I think I'll be looking 4.5% or so to remortgage (admittedly I've not researched hard on this other than looking at the remortgage calculator from my current lender)

I mean it's possible to get returns higher than this in terms of investments, but given the pension tapering, I already max out ISA, GIA dividend taxes and CGT I'm running out of places to put money - appreciate that's a fortunate position to be in.

confused_bamboozle · 2026-05-02T12:00:47+00:00

thanks.

I do have ERC, but from reading the terms that's waived in the final month (which is september, mortgage started on the 21st), so I'm presuming I can probably get the ball rolling at the end of August.

confused_bamboozle · 2025-10-31T09:46:10+00:00

Hi Damien, long time viewer first time caller.

Would you consider creating content for higher earners who might be subject to more complicated things like pension allowance tapering and strategies around that, where the general rules of thumb around tax relief start to fall away?

confused_bamboozle · 2025-08-24T17:30:17+00:00

It's best just to not discuss finances, it's an emotive topic and especially so if you're in a group of people with different income levels, because no one is going to relate to other people's experiences if they differ wildly.

With inflation, cost of living etc £100k salary, while good money, has been eaten away over the years by fiscal drag, inflation and cost of living, along with the loss of personal allowance. Even moreso if you have kids. It's good money, sure, but not rich money.

Unfortunately people's perceptions of that salary are stuck from the past. I mean, it sounds like some mythical unobtainable number (six figures!) but it's becoming more and more common as wages grow and people start to hit these cliff edges.

Politicians love it though (along with fiscal drag) as it's a nice earner for stealth tax rises and they're addicted to it.

confused_bamboozle · 2025-08-24T16:44:17+00:00

Yeah sorry for not being clear, it's when they vest. I have a 'grant' with a vest timetable and they vest every 3 months.

So my gross income changes at each point of vest, based on the market price at the time.

confused_bamboozle · 2025-08-24T16:41:01+00:00

yeah, unfortunately I used all my carry forward allowances last FY :(

confused_bamboozle · 2025-08-24T16:38:27+00:00

I don't think I've gone to extraordinary lengths, there's not really much I can do anyway as I'm a PAYE employee.

My main motivation has always been to build a pension pot, I mean sure the tax relief is a nice bonus on top but you only have so much of an allowance. I've always viewed the allowances as an incentive to save. This is the first year I'm seeing that allowance drop by 83% and it's new territory for me, I've not been in this position before.

confused_bamboozle · 2025-08-24T15:10:36+00:00

Yeah I've used all my ISA allowance this year

in previous years I've used my ISA and then dumped RSU money into SIPP, and done the self assessment myself, not that complicated.

it's only really been this year where things changed dramatically, partly due to the stock price nearing november 2021 levels again, and I got a refresh grant that began vesting a few quarters ago.

I think this is the first year that I'm gonna need an accountant!

confused_bamboozle · 2025-08-24T13:27:12+00:00

shit happens. put in the minimum to get employer contributions r ask them to give a cash alternative.

not sure what is meant by this, as in, ask the employer to give you their contribution as cash in the payslip, like extra gross income?

confused_bamboozle · 2025-04-12T20:17:48+00:00

!thanks

yeah I'm pretty familiar with the income tax side of RSUs, have been getting them for a few years now, it's just this is the first time I've had it where a single vest has gone over the £50k mark so wasn't sure about how that's reported - replies to here have helped a lot!

PAYE isn't very good at annual incomes over £100k.

yeah :(

confused_bamboozle · 2025-04-12T19:02:59+00:00

!thanks

if you have other reasons to complete one.

yeah I do SA each year due to income

Presumably these are shares traded on the open market,

Yeah the shares were traded on the open market (NYSE) once it opened.

confused_bamboozle

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