AIBU to think it’s too late for me to earn more money, due to my poor life choices.

Can you get the qualifications in work time or do you have to do it in your own time? I'm guessing it's the latter? I couldn't commit to anything in my own time, tried it with the OU, didn't work out.

Though I think the local NHS is recruiting as little as possible atm, so I'm not sure there's much in the way of admin opportunities. I need flexible hours, ideally WFH. Obviously more money would be ideal.

It’s never too late. I’m a 45 yo TA and starting a degree in Education in October. I have put a lot of thought into whether I should, but I have another 20 years of work where I don’t want to still be a TA.

It's absolutely never too late. I'm not in a necessarily low paying job, but felt I wanted more for myself and to stretch myself once the children were all settled in school. I also studied with the OU (can't recommend it enough) and am currently training to become a therapist. It was a very challenging few years, but I feel it was worth it. Best of luck to you - I'm sure you'll find your path :-)

Watching with interest.
I am also mid 40s. I have just GSCEs and a very old and obsolete GNVQ to my name. I have also only ever done min wage jobs.

I am on UC and classed as not fit to work as I have several MH issues and am also autistic. But the proposed changes to benefits scare me, and I wonder what I could realistically do.

Just wanted to add to the ‘it’s never too late’ narrative!
Not even GCSEs here, on the brink of being diagnosed with ADHD, rather a lot of past trauma. I turn 40 this year and almost five years ago I reached a breaking point in my crap low paid job.
I went for and got a very low level part time job with a big charity. I haven’t done any studying or anything outside of work, I have purely worked my arse off and been vocal and enthusiastic about any training opportunities that came up. After a year a similar job at a small charity came up and I went for that, got it and carried on as I was, making it very clear that I wanted to progress and would run with any opportunities that came my way. A few promotions later I’m now at management level with a key role. My biggest pay jump in one go was 10k.
So I’d say think outside the box. Be nice. Work hard. Ask questions, stick your hand up when no one else wants to do the tedious but needed extra training for things (did get a hi biz for being fire marshal though). You can absolutely get there.

Have you thought about the Civil Service? I was late 40's when I went there, started at a low grade to get through the door and increased my salary by nearly 75% within 18 months. We are not the best paid but the pension is good and there is a lot of flexibility.

What do you want to do?

TAs have so many awesome soft skills that cross over - negotiating, behaviour management, organising etc

My friend studied for a degree in education which was one afternoon/evening at uni. She was a TA and worked for 4.5 days while doing this. She then added another year on so her degree was a BA Hons. She then worked in the same school as an unqualified teacher for three years. She is now qualified and her salary has gone from 18k as a TA to 35k as a teacher. Her workload is ridiculous though.

The other thought on learning and working upwards to something that comes to mind for me, and I'm sure you have had the same or similar thoughts. How do you find the time and energy to do it.
I have health issues, I am tired all the time, and I take my hat off to people who say they do things in the evening.
In the evening I am just catching up on cleaning up, can barely keep my eyes open.

I think it will depend on what you want to do.

Oh believe me, in terms of money there are some whom have lived well as a part time T/A, and received benefits, didn't want to and probably didn't feel able to do more. But then they went and added another child in to the mix. So not going to do any more now.

I wouldn’t go to the NHS personally but admin within local government is good and often allows hybrid working. The pay isn’t bad, you get an excellent pension and good holidays. There are endless opportunities for in-house training in management and other courses. If you can complete a management level 3 course, you could become a team leader quite easily. Not a lot more responsibility but quite good pay for what it is (certainly average to above average pay for UK). There are lots of new departments cropping up which you could move into, when you get a foot in the door. The key is to apply for everything even if you don’t meet half the spec as they tend to prefer existing employees over new ones. Digital transformation, project management etc can be a good call.

Well, hopefully not too outing but my degree was in history. I wasn’t sure when I started it what I wanted to do afterwards so just went with a topic that appealed to my interest

the grad scheme I joined on a HR specialism, I completed my HR level 7 as part of the scheme and am now in HR management, grad schemes are possibly not for everyone and it was intense but it gave me the opportunity to progress very quickly and get a lot of exposure

happy to answer any questions 🙂

You can with the open university, they don’t have entry requirements. Depending on your previous level of education and how you find academics it can sometimes be worth doing an access course although I just went straight in with the first level 1 and it guides you through how to complete academic writing etc

there are also lots of free course La through openlearn and the library to get to grips with essay structure and referencing

You can at Open Uni or Birkbeck college.

Was coming here to suggest the civil service. Generally very good about reasonable adjustments, and values transferable skills.

You most certainly can, my friend and my DH both did this later in life.

No, you can do an access to higher education course or a foundation course prior to a degree.

Open University (OU) also do short courses, some of which are free, that you can take to get yourself back into the swing of studying.

Although I have a BA taken at Uni when I was younger, I took another degree via the OU & have since done a series of the short courses that they offer.

You can if you have alternative qualifications, or do a foundation year.

I'd be really interested to hear what you trained to do?

I would honestly concentrate on careers where you know you could either train on the job or ones where you can do a short course to get onto a better pay grade and opportunities.
The NHS is good for training opportunities. I did an NVQ through the NHS to become a social worker. There’s nurse ones too.
My friend who worked in admin has done an HR degree through the NHS. They offer apprenticeships too.
The one thing I would say is that you’re going to have to prioritise your career for a few years. Do late nights, study at weekends, be flexible. Your husband will need to step up, your kids might need to go into holiday, after school and breakfast club. They’ll be ok.
So prior to my son turning 4 I’d been on MW jobs. Now he’s nearly 10 and I’m on track to be on 45,000. It’s so worth it but I had to be brutal.