Once you’ve dipped your wrist in the world of watches, it can get moreish. Maybe you’ve already saved for your first mechanical watch, or bought something stylish in quartz that you’ve had your eye on for ages. But now you know that a windfall is in the offing and you want to up your wrist game, which means it is time to step into that next price bracket.

A watch under £5,000 is full heirloom territory, a well-deserved blowout for yourself and one you can justify by saying it’ll one day go to the kids.

This used to be a bit of a no-man’s land horologically speaking – you didn’t get the fireworks of the timepieces that were ten grand plus and you didn’t get the value of the sub-£1000 style. However, things have changed and lots of watch brands have wised up to the potential of this category. You won’t get any precious metals – it’s all steel or bronze here – and the only complications are likely to be chronographs or an extra time zone.

But what you can find might surprise you – in-house movements, entry-level styles from some of the biggest names in the business and even the odd limited edition. To save you spending hours trawling watch websites or, heaven help you, delving into forums, we’ve chosen the ten best watches out now that will give you change from £5,000.

Bell & Ross BR 03-92 Bi-Compass

Despite only having landed in 1992, the aviation and military-inspired Bell & Ross has become an icon, thanks in no small part to its instantly recognisable bevelled square cases and functional cockpit-instrument displays. This latest addition takes its inspiration from a vintage radio compass (sorry if you thought there was an actual compass in there), with the off-white and “Munsell green” colour scheme of the markers and numbers being identical to those of US Navy avionic instruments.