Once you get into the top tax band, the 20% cut in base pay only corresponds to an ~8% cut in take-home pay - a pretty good deal as far as I'm concerned. The problem is that employers who pay this much tend to be large US companies and therefore not well equipped to deal with requests for flexible working. Fortunately the law here means that such requests can't be dismissed out of hand, but unfortunately that doesn't mean HR is obligated to make such requests easy for managers to go along with.