Hi, considering the preceding post, it is highly unlikely that a non-scholar would fetch $8-10K by the age of 33. Your friend could have factored in his AWS, performance & variable bonuses for the entire year and divide the annual remuneration by 12 months. This is fairly common in many salary calculations.

I worked in one of the more important Ministries and a typical 33-40 year old should be earning around 6 - 8K. Going further, if the civil servant is deemed to possess good potential, he should be a grade 10 (at the second half of the 'bar') and fetch a salary range of 8K to 10K from the age of 40 - 45. This will enable him to hit superscale grade of 11K by 45-46. In short, civil servant's salary is actually quite predictable in relation to his or her age...(& hence not hard to discern if someone is blowing trumpet, haha)

However, the above equations do not apply for officers who are on the AO scheme. Those are the truly high flyers in the civil service and whose salary are significantly higher. They are the future Perm Secs & Deputy Secs so the government can't shortchange them. But not that many of them around though.

Hope that addresses your query. By the way, what do you do in the finance industry? Analyst work?