Starting again in my 40s??!

[CherryPieAndDamnFineCoffee]

Just wondering if anyone has any career advice for me, or if I am doomed!

Background - I'm in my early 40s, haven't worked for around 13yrs due to being on maternity leave / carer for my disabled child. My youngest is coming up for a year old, and my disabled child is now of an age where his disability is a bit easier to manage, and I'm wondering what on earth I'm going to do employment wise!

I have a degree in engineering, though I graduated over 20yrs ago and tbh, I'd struggle to remember anything relevant. I did work in a sort of related field, but nothing much that would be relevant for a similar job nowadays.

I potentially have a year or two to retrain in something before I'm intending going back to work, but I'm unsure what would be my best option. Ideally something with the potential for a good salary (though not sure how realistic that would be, re-entering job market mid-forties with not much relevant experience!), and ideally something with the option of working from home / being freelance. I should also add I have an illness that has the potential for chronic fatigue in the future (though not definitely), hence why I'm thinking something with the potential to be flexible / self-employed. Another thing I should add is that I suspect I have Aspergers, and prefer working alone and am really not a "leader" type.

I'm not really sure what I'm good at! I've lost a lot of confidence over the years. I did enjoy maths & chemistry at school, love quantum physics, dabbled a bit in programming (made my own website back in the day when you had to know HTML from scratch), enjoy being creative (knitting, sewing, drawing etc, but wouldn't say I was good at it or "arty"). Jobs I've enjoyed in the past were rather mundane filing type admin things, although I did find them boring and felt I could have been stretched so much more. Teaching is a no-no. I probably function best when I have clear, set goals and am left to get on with it. I am really good at focusing on one thing for long periods of a time (I research the hell out of things), but don't cope well when trying to do too many things at once.

I have considered accountancy, but think it might bore me, computer programming, but not sure if I actually would be any good at it, and indexing, but not sure if that's still a skill that will be required 10-20yrs in the future, or if it's easy to get in to (seems to require a lot of networking?).

So, is there anything career wise I should be considering, or is my wish list too unrealistic? Am I destined to a crappy minimum wage job?? Any ideas anyone?

[BettyBaggins]

IT support? A friend who works for the local University was telling me that they are having issues employing at the moment due to private sector paying more than public sector. From what I can see the Uni pay a good wage and the extra benefits they provide all add up to a good package.

[CherryPieAndDamnFineCoffee]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Can you tell me more about data science? It sounds a bit abstract! Also, would this sort of thing have the potential for being self-employed?

Not sure about IT support. It sounds as if it would be a bit boring?

I've been thinking about maybe doing some Open Uni stuff relating to environmental management - I did work in a sort of similar field to environmental consultancy, maybe this is something I could get back into? But then I think, I'll be almost 50 when I finish all that , and it's all very well saying I could have another 20 odd years of work ahead of me, but I don't know if I'll still be healthy & fit enough then, and also, I feel like I'm always going to be playing "catch up" to reach a reasonable level of experience / earning potential! Is it really worth it?!

Also thought again about bookkeeping. I'll be honest, I have no idea really what this is like, but it seems like there is the potential to carve out a self-employed, flexible role with this, but I'm not sure if it's for me? I'm thinking in terms of finding clients, dealing with lots of new people, maybe being a bit stressful in regards to deadlines etc. I'm not really very confident about things like that.

Actually, I'm feeling a bit down about the whole thing right now. I can't believe I'm written off in my 40s .

Anyone else had a major career change in their 40s/50s?? I suppose I'm worried about committing time & finance to retraining, without the guarantee of a decent paying position at the end of it, or worse, becoming so ill that I can't sustain a full-time job. But then, I don't want to spend what's left of my working life doing minimum wage work when I could be capable of so much more. There must be flexible careers out there. What am I missing?

[CherryPieAndDamnFineCoffee]

Thank you!

Yes, yesterday I was feeling a bit down about it all but today I decided to start a course on Codecademy! You are right, lots going round & round my head all week - every day I had a different idea of what I should do, and the next day it changed!

I've decided to do some coding courses (I'll have a look at the links thanks) as they are free and I can do them now at home, and I enjoy them and it is doing something! I'll also have a look at the bookkeeping thread. Thanks :)

[BettyBaggins]

Go you Cherrypie, let life begin at 40!

[mathur]

It's such a wonderful read on this article.