Work to live, not live to work. Low-stress finance jobs...
What are some roles with a combination of:
Lifestyle (9-5)
Decent pay ($125K in high COL region)
Relatively low stress (limited fire drills, limited risk or potential for major mistakes)
Demand (not super niche, potential to work in a relatively wide range of industries and companies)
For those of us with the work to live attitude, what's up?
if a lot of hours gives you stress, you just haven't found the right career. every rewarding job will be stressful at times, but if you have a career you really enjoy, you won't mind the hours. I have friends who are VPs in banking, PE, and HF/AM, working many more hours than I do but they love it. likewise, there are people in PWM who have cushy schedules and abhor it. it's less about the quantity and more the nature of the work that will lead you to enjoy life.
answering the question directly, zero entry level roles have what you're talking about. you will most likely not achieve the lifestyle demands you seek until you're late 20s/early 30s, at which point you're a value add, either in sales, as a senior analyst at a fund with good hours, or something similar that affords you flexibility with your schedule.
I think you're generalizing a bit. Not everyone strikes to be the best or most important cog in the wheel.
Some, like me, care way more about getting paid enough to live comfortably and then heading home to spend time with family.
Work is a means to an end. Not the end all, be all. Again, for some. And this thread is for those that align to this.
I believe there was a thread about this earlier in the summer (you can search cushy 40-45 hours 125k in the search bar and it might comes up :D)
Generally there are a few ways you can go about it. BB Ops is one. F500 Finance from the data points I have will probably get you to 120K by say 5-6 years or so (at this point you are a very senior analyst or junior manager). A credit rating agency is another option (you work a bit more occasionally but generally a low stress environment with around 120-150k upside at the similar years.) An associate in corporate development/corp strat will make around this amount as well. (YMMV but I'd say that it's about as close to a 9-5 job as you'll find in finance with good upside for more as you progress). I wouldn't worry too much about the figures. the ballpark really is to do good work for 5-7 years in some corporate role and you'll probably hit 120-150 unless you really mess up somewhere.
I do want to echo what others have said above that this would be a good medium term target but not necessarily one you should box yourself into right out of or a few years out of college, just because you may involuntarily limit your upside or as a worst case never approach 120k (unlikely but greater than 0% chance) if you stagnate at a point in time. if you are a few years in I think the most prudent approach is to really grind out 2-4 years of hard work and then enjoy the output of that work. The tradeoff is less free time when you are in your early 20's in exchange for a fairly probable likelihood you hit the number you seek above with pretty comfortable hours/lifestyle, but also with a significant degree of optionality to your opportunities beyond should you choose to seek them.
Of course the above is not the best for everyone at all. I'm of the opinion that you should never be in a job where you feel miserable getting up to go to the office. Life's far too short to dread this in each case ;P
One observation/experience I'd add is that many people I know you now have "cushy" jobs used to work in a more fast-paced position earlier on in their career (e.g. IB, consulting, etc.). For instance, lots of corp dev and corp start roles will have good pay, reasonable hours, and ability to live in a low COL area, but you often need previous experience in the specific area to be considered. Essentially, you have to pay your dues upfront.
Note: this is not to say you can't work your way up on the corporate side, but odds are that a "name brand" experience on your resume will help you get there faster and with more likelihood.
I'm going to get flamed for saying this but internal audit after 3-5 years would fit the bill. Unless you get into a competitive program which is training future finance leaders (GE CAS, Dell GAT, etc.) the hours will be chill and you have to be an idiot to get fired. Even if you do, no one WANTS to be a SOX auditor and it's pretty easy to get another job as long as you don't drool on yourself in the interview.
Software engineering. It's the blue collar job of the modern era.
I was just about to say this. I know this is a Finance forum, but if you really want a cushy job that pays well with good security, just get a job in Tech. If you work decently hard in the first few years(50ish hours a week) you'll stand out and get to a middle manager level role easily. At the big tech companies you can pretty easily bring in 200k+ all in for simply being a Senior Engineer, Engineering Manager, Product Manager, etc.
Even finance in tech pays pretty well, tons of guys in Corp Dev, Corp FP&A, Corp Strat can all hit mid 100s to bordering on 200k all in in their late mid to late 20s.
Don't bother with all this Tax/Audit/Risk BS
The only issue is that ~200k in the Bay area, Seattle, or other tech centric high COL cities isn't really that much given housing prices.