To ask you to find a career for my DH

Impossible to say without knowing more about him/his background.

Plumber? He could become a handyman or driver.

Financial services consultant? He could become a fund raiser for a charity.

edit for typo.

In many places there are shortages of bus drivers and recently saw an advert for train drivers to be trained. I saw someone had thought of driving instructor,well lots of people will be needing a driving instructor.

Has he thought of a probation officer or prison officer. An amazing opportunity to make a real difference x

I am guessing he does something trade-related like gas fitter, builder, mechanic. If he does t want to carry on in that field as a sole trader he could get a salaried job doing whatever he does, for a charity. For example our local mental health charity is always looking for estates people.

The problem is going to be the salary. £30k with progression is not that well aligned to socially rewarding roles. Unfortunately. He might be better off knocking down his hours in his current role and spending some time Volunteering in something more worthwhile. Plus also volunteering can sometimes open unexpected doors to interesting paid work.

finally … is he really sure he doesn’t want to continue in his well-paid, autonomous job?? The job market is not good at the moment and there are many people chasing desk jobs.

The civil service (and its many and varied quangos) recruit on competencies, and there are a surprising range of people-facing roles. Lousy - average pay really, great pension and perks, loads of interesting opportunities to progress.

-Health and safety officer
-Start a lawn mowing/general maintenance business or work for a franchise
-Fast food shop manager
-Rigger
-Public servant
-Call centre operator with plans to move into management over the next few years
-Pathology collector

Ok op, we get that you don't want to say what he does now, but to give any kind of suggestions it'd be a lot easier if you just say what he does.

Talk about a bloody drop feed

What about funeral service staff (driving / pallbearing, etc.) or funeral celebrant? Training courses available (optional but recommended) for celebrancy.

Edited for typo.

Postman

I hire entry level positions in housing.

My last hires were young, pretty qualified, very enthusiastic, with huge room for growth in the field.

I’m not sure I would have selected an older man with no experience or specific passion in the field who just wanted to do something good. Not to say that isn’t noble, it is. But NGOs and government social programming is plagued by well-meaning amateurs thinking being clever and wanting to know things substitutes for experience and knowledge. There is often a feeling that social services types of jobs look easy. If you’re just nice and kind. They aren’t.

How about general emergency call handling? Or what about Working in care? There are Personal Assistant roles for adults with learning needs helping them to live independently as well as the obvious working in elder care. Has he also looked into functional skills English and Maths?

Sales? How flexible is his moral compass?
Is he self-employed? How is his health?

What about something local government like? Housing has plenty of jobs you don’t need qualifications for at entry level.

Personal trainer? Getting fat people fit and healthy is contributing to society and helps him stay fit.

Driving instructor? My friend retrained as this last year and finds it very rewarding.

As a pp suggested, some health careers such as nursing have access routes for people without the usual qualifications.

Volunteering is a good way to make contacts and try out different types of work.

He needs to narrow it down.
Look around what looks good? Then what route to get there eg access course
What does he do now and why does he not like it?

Could you give us an idea of what he does now? So that we can consider transferable skills? And also, the minimum salary he could accept?

It is competitive but I didn't have to jump through any hoops, just had to really smash the interview. Just one interview, no hoops!

It's a STAR style interview which are easy to nail if you know what you're doing and know what they're looking for (and actually have the stuff to a certain extent!), and most fire services recruit 2-3 times a year because the turnover is high - this is either the perfect job for you or it's not for you at all and a lot of the time you don't find out which camp you fall into until you get into the control room.

It really is the best job I've ever had and I've been all over the place in all sorts of roles in all sorts of sectors. There just aren't words for how rewarding it is, and the work life balance really is amazing.

He could start off by writing down a list of his skills, especially the transferable ones. What is he good at? A list of things he would like to do, what's important to him? What doesn't he want to do? How flexible is he with regard to location? Salary etc. Then he could get a clearer idea of the type of work that might be a good fit and target his research in that area.

Perhaps you might direct your husband to MN’s dedicated Mature Study and Retraining board, @MerryGoRound9? There are sure to be helpful pointers, ideas, and guidance amongst the countless threads there:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/mature_students

I work on an inpatient psychiatric ward.
he can start as an hca with some specific training, then he may get accepted on to a nurse apprenticeship through the trust.
or - I always need someone to put up shelves, build log store etc, and these skills can be done at a local college.

Is he a people person or a thing person?