Six years ago, Ima* (27) earned ₦80k/month. Today, she’s a product manager in the UK earning £65k/year. Despite earning more than ever, her relocation has triggered an era of strict budgeting and radical money boundaries.
In this story, she shares her income growth trajectory, how she’s navigating corporate UK as an immigrant, and why she is aggressively cutting down her black tax to protect her financial future.
As Told To Boluwatife
My career started in 2020, right after NYSC.
I studied English in university, which meant I had no clear idea what I wanted to do with my life. I was desperately broke and willing to take anything that paid.
That was how I landed a role as a Business Development Executive at a jewellery company, earning ₦80k/month. It was a glorified sales role heavily tied to commission, but I still lived with my parents, so ₦80k was enough to buy myself stuff occasionally.
However, it quickly became obvious that my salary couldn’t fund the life I wanted. It couldn’t even get me a place of my own in Lagos.
So, in September 2021, I quit without a backup plan. I wanted something different, but I still didn’t know what my options were. I figured I might fit into Human Resources based on my personality. So, I gathered my savings and paid roughly ₦110,000 to get professional certifications from the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPM).
The pivot: Following the bag
The HR job hunt lasted a few months, but the CIPM certification paid off. It got me through the door at a tech company as a management trainee earning ₦150k/month in 2022. During onboarding, the recruiters explicitly told me they had hired me only because they saw the CIPM certification on my CV and knew I was serious about HR.
The company was structured to let management trainees rotate through a few departments. It was here that I heard the phrase “Product Management” for the very first time. Intrigued, I asked the team: “Can I try this out for just one month before I go back to my designated HR department?” They agreed.
I spent a month in product, and then spent the next month back in HR, where I had access to the payroll data. I saw what HR people were earning and what product managers and engineers were taking home. The latter group earned more, so I decided to follow the bag. It took some audacity and a lot of persuasion, but I managed to convince my employers to let me move to Product Management.
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Scaling the income ceiling
Once I got in, my focus was growth. My salary bumped up to ₦250k, but it plateaued there. I needed to scale my income, so I kept an eye on the market.
In December 2023, after nearly two years at the job, I moved to a fintech company, and my new starting salary was ₦680k. A year later, I was promoted to Senior Product Manager, and my salary climbed to ₦1.4 million.
On paper, I was making significantly more than the average Nigerian, but the reality of living in Lagos was draining. I was paying roughly ₦250k/month for a tiny, serviced studio apartment. That’s nearly ₦3 million a year just on rent for a small space.
On top of that, the economic uncertainties in Nigeria were soaring, and my family responsibilities were incredibly heavy. The money wasn’t compounding; it was just going out. I also felt like I had hit a ceiling for my career level in Nigeria. Very few companies in the country would pay higher than what I was already making. To get a substantial bump, I needed a drastic lifestyle and geographical shift.
My husband had already been living in the UK for a while. So, it was an obvious decision to relocate too.
Navigating the UK market
Immediately after deciding to move, I started testing the job market. I overhauled my CV, changed my LinkedIn location to the UK, and used my husband’s British phone number.
Initially, the application process was brutal. I was applying and getting zero callbacks. I managed to get a few interviews, but one company explicitly rejected me because I was “overqualified” for a role that would have paid me double my Nigerian income.
I stopped applying entirely and shifted my strategy to visibility. I started posting consistently on LinkedIn, optimising my profile so recruiters could find me.
The strategy flipped the script. Suddenly, recruiters were reaching out to me every week.
I moved to the UK in February 2026. By the end of March, I had secured a full-time Product Manager role in the insurance sector. My new salary is £65,000/year. After taxes, that leaves me with roughly £4k in monthly take-home.
I should be ecstatic about this because it is a lot of money. However, I feel conflicted.
For one, I’ve found myself wrestling with intense imposter syndrome. Coming from Nigeria, I never had to worry about proving my basic competence. But there is subtle racism in the UK, and the pressure to perform and make a flawless impression for those coming after me is immense. Sometimes, I wonder if I’m just a diversity hire.
Also, insurance is a new industry for me. I want to get back into fintech, but UK fintech regulations are incredibly stringent, making the hiring process much tighter.
How relocation has changed my attitude to money
The biggest transformation since moving has been my relationship with money.
In Nigeria, I was the financial centre of my extended family. Aside from my rent and basic food, almost all my money vanished into family demands.
Moving to the UK has forced me into an era of radical financial prudence. Nobody cares about flashy displays of wealth here. My husband and I live below our means. We drive a pre-owned car and live in a modest apartment.
We also started mapping out every single pound using a budgeting tool. This year, I made a strict rule not to disclose my salary to my family. They knew how much I earned in Nigeria, and I think it contributed to my black tax load.
At some point, I was paying roughly ₦500k in black tax every month. For almost a year, I was paying ₦300k monthly to offset a ₦3 million debt my parents incurred to finish the roofing on their house after a landlord served them an eviction notice. I was also paying ₦100k monthly for my sister’s upkeep, along with other regular family expenses.
I no longer tell my family what I earn, but family demands are still heavy, even more so since I’m in the UK. To manage it, my husband and I have formalised our black tax into a tight monthly budget of £600 (roughly ₦1.2 million) for our parents and siblings. The rest of our income goes into sorting bills and trying to be strict with savings and investments.
It’s hard not to feel guilty about reducing black tax when I think about how I’m living here, while people are back home struggling. But I’m now at a point where I have to pay attention to my finances and find a way to make sense of them.
Looking ahead
Right now, my investment portfolio is almost nonexistent. I have just £500 sitting in stocks. I could count the ₦5 million resting in my Nigerian pension pot, but I can’t touch that until I’m 55.
My goal is to aggressively build wealth from scratch. My husband and I are looking to hit £100k in our investment portfolio within the next three to five years by maintaining our low cost of living, even as our incomes grow. By the end of next year, we want to pool capital to fund higher-risk investments back in Nigeria or another African country to generate a solid yield. The long-term goal is to accumulate £1 million, retire early, and live comfortably.
I recognise how incredibly lucky I am to have scaled my income this quickly as a non-technical immigrant who started out earning ₦80k just six years ago. But I’m still healing my relationship with money.
I want to reach a place where budgeting is second nature, my portfolio is compounding, and I can support my family without an ounce of underlying resentment. Until everyone stands firmly on their own two feet, the journey continues.
*Name has been changed to protect the subject’s identity.
NEXT READ: I Make ₦45m/Year at 21. Here’s How I’m Building a ₦1bn Net Worth by 30
