Jobs that pay more than you expect

[Moominho]

Whilst reading about the air traffic control problems at Heathrow a couple of days ago, I was surprised to read that one of the air traffic controllers at London City airport was earning over 100k a year. I appreciate that it is a high pressured job, and there is a hell of a lot of responsibility, but I wasn't aware that it paid that highly.

Later that day, I was speaking to a neighbour, who is a binman. He was saying that some of the binmen earn more than 50k a year(presumably with overtime) as well as a decent pension.

Are there any other jobs/careers that pay more than you would expect?

[Sump]

Go the other way. There are pilots out there on £28k.

[anonymous-user]

Drain/sewage men get between 100k to 150k as that tv programme showed.

[Chunkymonkey71]

Careers advice paid fk all.

[trickywoo]

Tube drivers do very well for little work.

[GTIR]

I've found the lower the actual wage and the least skilled jobs employ the biggest bullstters.

A bin man would earn 11-17k pa with some overtime but as they all finish at 12 I doubt they'd be any.
Irrc in the 70's/80's it was better paid but they actually did some work then.

[Vince70]

Train drivers get paid a minimum of £43000 a year...and also get a brilliant pension..

[northwest monkey]

Moominho said:

Later that day, I was speaking to a neighbour, who is a binman. He was saying that some of the binmen earn more than 50k a year(presumably with overtime) as well as a decent pension.

Are there any other jobs/careers that pay more than you would expect?

I bet that figure only applies to the ones that have been there since 1974 though rather than the new recruits!

I worked for an IT company in the late 90's up to about 2004. In 2002 we bought a Datacentre which had originally been owned by a public sector organisation. There were a couple of lads working in there (not management) who because of their contracts were on well over £80k with shift allowances etc. New starters were on about £25k....

[EddyP]

The Spruce goose said:

Drain/sewage men get between 100k to 150k as that tv programme showed.

Private plumbers might, people working for the water companies don't get anywhere near as much as that. Not everything on TV is real
Basic pay for a typical guy operating a sewage works is 18 - 23k + OT, average take home would be around £30k

[northwest monkey]

The Spruce goose said:

Drain/sewage men get between 100k to 150k as that tv programme showed.

Is that true though?

Sounds like the "£100k a year plumber" often quoted in the papers (and adverts for training companies offering a plumbers course!).

[northwest monkey]

EddyP said:

The Spruce goose said:

Drain/sewage men get between 100k to 150k as that tv programme showed.

Private plumbers might, people working for the water companies don't get anywhere near as much as that. Not everything on TV is real
Basic pay for a typical guy operating a sewage works is 18 - 23k + OT, average take home would be around £30k

A plumber mate of mine reckons that the £100k+ figure is based on doing emergency callouts 365 days a year & is purely theoretical.

[Moominho]

The binman he was talking about had been in the job for 20+ years. But it still seemed like quite a lot.

[VEIGHT]

Self employed delivery driver? Paid per collection I think?

[Justayellowbadge]

We recently paid a painter/decorator 7k for 3 weeks work - we supplied all materials on top.

He's booked up months ahead in the main.

[northwest monkey]

VEIGHT said:

Self employed delivery driver? Paid per collection I think?

Yeah, about a quid.

I got more than that for delivering pizza in 1990.

[TVR1]

Justayellowbadge said:

We recently paid a painter/decorator 7k for 3 weeks work - we supplied all materials on top.

He's booked up months ahead in the main.

Thanks for your business, once again, Richard.

It was a pleasure meeting you!










3 sugars in my tea, next time, please.

[GG89]

Justayellowbadge said:

We recently paid a painter/decorator 7k for 3 weeks work - we supplied all materials on top.

He's booked up months ahead in the main.

Really?

That's unbelievable.

[Chim]

Justayellowbadge said:

We recently paid a painter/decorator 7k for 3 weeks work - we supplied all materials on top.

He's booked up months ahead in the main.

3 weeks, 7k Do you live on the fourth road bridge JAYB. Will send you the number of my bloke, blooming brilliant, all paint supplied, hall, lounge, kitchen and living room 1100 quid done in 5 days.

[Lefty]

We've had doc control people on £300/day for what is a pretty basic job. Not an unimportant job, but I think it's fair to describe it as more menial/admin type work. Strong money I think most would agree.

In the same building, process engineers charging £140/hr and a staff guy seconded from another part of the company to do a very similar job on only £60k!

Edited by Lefty on Sunday 8th December 21:54

[Justayellowbadge]

GG89 said:

Justayellowbadge said:

We recently paid a painter/decorator 7k for 3 weeks work - we supplied all materials on top.

He's booked up months ahead in the main.

Really?

That's unbelievable.

Job was redecorating 2 5 bed houses, including some plastering, tiling, grouting, and sanding and refinishing wood floors.

Cheapest quote from companies was more than 15k, excluding the flooring.

None were remotely interested in negotiating.

I think we got it cheap, but also think he's making a good living.