‘We gave up fat salaries to do something we loved’

Alex Farquhar never thought he would leave his job. He had been a site manager at a retail distribution centre for more than a decade and although it was stressful, with 4am starts and 12-hour shifts, it was worth it for a salary of about £50,000 a year plus bonuses. But when the company said it was moving from Northampton to Stafford last year, Farquhar, 47, started to think about the alternative.
“I loved my work and had some fantastic colleagues but I realised how stressed and exhausted I’d become. I realised that my heart was not in this line of work any more.”
They say that if you find a job you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. But what if taking that job means a significantly lower salary?
Sacrificing better financial security for higher job satisfaction can feel like a difficult trade-off. “Most people suffer from what we call lifestyle creep,” said Catherine Morgan, a financial coach from St Brelade’s, Jersey, who gave up a £55,000 a year job to go self-employed in 2018.
“They get used to a certain lifestyle and it can be harder than they realise to give this up. But there is joy in deciding that money is not the most important thing and putting your time — the one thing we cannot buy back — into something more fulfilling.”
Morgan said she has built her income up to over six figures and been able to pay off “£30,000 of debt I’d accumulated which felt impossible to pay off when employed”.
We speak to three workers who traded a comfortable pay cheque for a dream career.
After Farquhar decided to take redundancy, a surprise job advert landed in his email inbox. It was for a postman in his local area. The pay was far lower: £25,000 a year plus overtime and incentives. But after discussing it a with his wife, Ruth, he decided to go for it.
“I’d always imagined how happy I’d be as a postman,” he said. “The freedom of it, and working outdoors. But until that moment it wasn’t something I thought I’d ever do. Ruth and I agreed this was the best time to at least give it a try.”
Taking a pay cut can have emotional as well as financial consequences, Morgan said. “There might be fear of judgment, what are people going to think?”
She said that making sure your partner supports your career change was important. If you were the breadwinner and would now become the lower earner, consider how this could affect your relationship.
At first, Farquhar kept his new job a secret from friends and family when he started last November. “I was worried that people would think less of me,” he said.
But almost a year on, he is enjoying his new profession. “I absolutely love it. I’m working outside and interacting with so many people. I have always preached about work-life balance but I think for the first time I understand what that means.”
• I gave up my job at nearly 40. Why women my age are quitting• Music, sport, the church: we gave it all up to be fund managers
Mary Broddle had been a chartered engineer in the rail industry for 20 years — and she loved it. But then her health deteriorated.
Broddle, 47, from Nottinghamshire, was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a condition that affects connective tissue and causes chronic pain.
“It took everything I had just to get to my desk each day,” she said. Struggling to cope with the long hours and no longer able to drive, Broddle felt she had no option but to leave her job in 2019.
Broddle hoped for more flexible work in the industry but realised that all the jobs she could find required ten-hour days, so she began to consider other options.
Her husband, Richard, 48, worked full-time so Broddle was able to take a few months to carefully plan her next steps.
This is a good idea if you can afford to do it, Morgan said. “I encourage people to do a ‘goal test’. To understand the reality of living on a lower income, it’s a good idea to establish what lifestyle changes you would need to make and carry out a trial run to experience what life will really be like.”
Broddle set up Mary Broddle Embroidery in September 2020 and now runs regular classes and sells her own work. “I discovered embroidery when I gave up smoking in my twenties and over the years it helped me cope with my illness,” she said. “I decided to match this with my communication skills and business acumen to try to make my hobby my job.”
Her annual earnings have fallen from more than £50,000 when she was an engineer to less than £10,000 but embroidery fits around her needs, allowing her to rest in the afternoons if she needs to. And while her children, Robin, 14, and Leo, 11, have complained that they no longer have exotic holidays, they are enjoying having their mum around more.
“Financial sacrifices are sometimes necessary but the bigger picture often proves more important,” Morgan said. “It is important to counterbalance financial decisions with your health.”
• Grow big or go home: why I quit my job to set up a seed business
It can be hard to sacrifice salary for potential longer term happiness, so do your homework and be realistic about what taking a significant pay cut will mean for your day-to-day life, Morgan said. “There might be moments of fear, grief, even regret, so it is important to be clear about the reasons you might make such a change and keep perspective when things seem tough.”
Many analysts believe it will become normal to have many different kinds of job over a working life. A survey last year by the recruitment company Randstad found that 60 per cent of respondents would turn down a job that would disrupt their work-life balance while 83 per cent wanted their job to fit in with their personal life.
That’s what led Rhiannon Relfe, from Surrey, to reconsider her job in local government in 2012.
“I was earning about £35,000 a year but after a work reorganisation I found myself in a new team with different responsibilities … a job I no longer recognised,” she said.
Relfe, 41, wanted more control over her working hours — and more fun. She found a training course in London for amateur bakers looking to set up their own kitchen table business and opened the Epsom Bakehouse the following year, selling goods at her local market.
She also took on temping office work, back in local government, to supplement her income while she grew her business.
This is a common strategy, according to Morgan: “Many people who have taken a pay cut or started their own business take on a part-time job or side-hustle to support this move. It’s sensible if you are making a dramatic change.”
Relfe has expanded her business and now teaches baking classes, does demonstrations at festivals and has a YouTube channel.
She earns about half what she did in her local government job, but said that it has been surprisingly easy to adapt.
“I’m so much happier. I have flexibility, I get to meet some wonderful people and passing on my skills is a joy,” Relfe said.
“The best moment for me is still that wow factor when someone pulls a freshly baked loaf from the oven.”
• The highest paying jobs in the UK• The best budgeting apps
1. Make sure that your partner or spouse is on board with your plans. Be realistic about how becoming a lower earner might affect your relationship.2. Consider what a change will do to your retirement plans. Think about how much you have saved into a pension and what you might need in the future.3. Be realistic about the lifestyle you want. Make sure you have money to cover essentials and the things in your life you feel you cannot do without.4. Carry out a “goal test” where you practise living on your new budget.5. Write down the benefits of the change — so that you can refer back to it when things seem challenging.