job at BMW or 6th form

My Dad has no formal qualifications what so ever and he earns over £40000 a year.

Without any level 3 qualifications, it's fairly unlikely you'll be looking at a well paid job (40k+) no matter what industry you go into. Unfortunately, qualifications are what most employers want, compared to actual work experience. Qualifications show in paper form that you are skilled, competant and literate - and that's very important in a well paid job.

its normally the other way round, hence why it's called "industry standard" and not "university standard", and why experience is often taken over qualifications. lecturers can only teach what they know, and a lot of them have been out of the industry for a while or are not fully up to date on the research. if it was me making the choice i'd go with the bmw idea, and hopefully some qualifications can be earned whilst on the job, then consider taking A levels in a couple of years if needed to boost up the CV. being a service apprentice will teach you about cars as you fiddle with them, hands on experience compared to sitting around looking at pictures.

bmw will probably want to keep you for a while after paying for the training, however its not stopping you moving to other garages/continuing study elsewhere after to get into a better job.

mm.. except no one with ambition aspires to earn just 30k and therefore won't think that 30k is well paid.

I would like to know who starts on 40k a year. Or how many people achieve that with a degree from University within 10 years of working.

All the best graudate jobs will easily see you earning 40K and above after about 3-5 years nevermind 10 years. Investment Banking, Law, Medicine, Big Accountancy Firms, Blue Chip Companys. All these. Of course these are the most competitive jobs and so graduates will be coming from top 20-30 universities and often have internship and practial experience in addition to secure the roles.

40k in medicine after 3 years?

40k in medicine after 3 years?

Do you really think that someone earning £30k isn't well paid?

That is probably adequate for a teenager.
However, if you only earn that as an adult, you are a complete loser.
It is not difficult to earn over a £120k in law, medicine, veterinary med and investment banking.

do you know any *teenagers* earning 30k? I stress the word teenager as it is the one you used, and that would obviously mean someone under the age of 20...