To think that there are no well paid family friendly careers?

How young are your children, op? Are they both at school? Do you have family etc around? Do you live near good transport links?

Training contracts are very hard to get. Like extremely hard.

Thousands apply for very few positions. Law firms are taking on less and less trainees and that’s only going to get worse as more and more firms use AI.

DH is a partner and all of their trainees have 3 or 4 A*’s and firsts. Largely out of Oxford or Cambridge.

DH doesn’t have those academics himself, but the landscape has significantly changed since he was applying for graduate roles.

I’m not putting down your academics, but you need to be realistic. You will be up against thousands of graduates with significantly better academics than you.

Find someone to build you a website and set up a PR agency (self employed).

Advertise your specialism on social media. Play up to the fact that you are a SAHM - it has social value - and the reduced impact of remote working - it has env value.

Cold call/email local companies - research them first see if you can find work/bids they want to apply for or should. Say how you can help them.

Keep your prices keen but don't go cheap, though you could provide offers.

Sooner than you think you'll have work.

You don't need to be employed to earn a living from your current specialism.

The difficult part is that DH’s career completely dominates everything. He works away a lot and at short notice so I’d have to work around this. This is non-negotiable - DH couldn’t not do this and if he moved to a different role, we’d be taking a huge pay cut (probably over double what I’d ever realistically earn).

It sounds like your employer would need to work around your DH's career.

There are definitely roles where you can finish earlier and pick up the work in the evening (law, corporate roles, etc) but it sounds like you need a lot more flexibility than that?

Alevels, that's well in the past for the OP- try answering the questions rather than just running out your frustrations. According to the NHS website it typically takes 6 years to qualify.

@Laurmolonlabe
A-levels
Medicine degree
Foundation training
Psychiatry core training, then higher training

Its years and years of work.

Even a vet doesn't do 15 years before practising- you can decide to study on MA, PHD but you don't have to . A degree is 3 years , then professional qualification, maybe 5-6 years as you originally said- but you need9 years of placements- really that sounds very strange.

Because she's looking at probably 13 - 15 years of study / placements in a competitive field before she becomes a fully qualified consultant psychiatrist (and thats assuming she has strong science A-Levels to begin with, which a background in PR work suggests maybe not).

She's looking for something that is flexible and family-friendly, that works around her husband's last minute travel plans.

I know a number of psychiatrists that do have quite a bit of flexibility in that they write Court reports on a private basis, and can manage their own diary in that respect, but they are only qualified to write those reports and be expert-witnesses because of the expertise they have gained through the years of graft in the NHS beforehand. Her family would be grown and flown the nest long before she reached that point.

In house comms at a large firm, as others have said. Wherever your nearest city is will have some decent sized employers and you’d be likely to WFH a few days a week but still work on interesting stuff, depending upon the sector. You might even be lucky enough to find fully remote (as I have) which enables me to work in a highly paid sector (financial services) but be fully flexible. The kids that are still young enough to need childcare use a bit of breakfast club and a bit of afterschool, but this means their school day is 8-4 instead of 7-6 which is the minimum it’d be if I had to commute every day.

I was in a similar position about 3-4 years ago, had been out of the workforce for the guts of a decade, aside from the odd contract here and there. Needed to get back to work and went through similar debates around retraining etc. Situation different to yours in that I needed to be earning well quickly, but even without that pressure I think I’d have found it pretty demoralising to slog through many years of training and then early career again - with even less chance of flexibility at this stage as others have noted - rather than just getting back into a similar field I was in before (marketing), even if in a less interesting sector (FS now as opposed to travel industry). I’m definitely not doing the role I dreamed of early in my career but the benefits massively outweigh the bit of boredom. I remind my eye rolling kids constantly that no one ever died of boredom 😂

If the employer is large enough, once you’re in and have proven yourself, you can move around a bit or carve a niche to make more interesting work for yourself. Sorry to repeat what so many others have said but the instantly flexible, highly paid, interesting, rewarding and fulfilling job really doesn’t exist without a few years of pain/dullness/long hours etc first.

I retrained as a therapist, after returning from maternity leave at a third sector organisation to find that my department had been completely disbanded! I'd been self employed before, it doesn't suit everyone but I like it. I now train, supervise and see clients and earn a reasonable amount, although many of my peers earn far more, as I am crap at marketing myself and not very income motivated really as long as I have enough for me. When my son was small I never missed a school run, or school event. I can work whenever I want to, and with a high hourly rate (£70, but some charge £150) I can work 2-3 hours a day and still do all the household chores and parenting. Downside is the unpredictability.

Educational psychology is a seven year commitment. It’s a conversion MSC then a three year doctorate which barely any universities offer. Then two years in a county council before you can offer private work. I have a psychology and a psychology MSC. I have 20 years in education and mental health. I have small children and I cannot work out how to complete the doctoral training whilst still caring for them. I am also a qualified teacher and I cannot work out how to care for my children whilst teaching. Just so you know. Lots of people go for psychology or teaching but it’s not easy and it doesn’t really fit around family. I would do the doctorate but where I am I would need to travel two hours to get the the university. So that’s not manageable.

Even if you retrain in a new industry you are going to have to start at the bottom and work you way up to get the kind of flexibility you want. It unlikely you will take precedence over people who have been doing the job for a while.
If you did do another degree are you prepared to take on any job as extra income while studying?

A big salary without putting the hours in is an almost impossible ask- the OP said she was happy to go back to university and could afford it- so what is your problem exactly?

I would say post COVID the workplace is definitely more family friendly and more workplaces are offering flexible contracts and modern working ways. I also feel that with generations moving up the managerial positions are starting to see more modern viewpoints thankfully. You just need to find a good working environment and a good team. I work 4 days a week and have a 6 year old and 19 months old. I work one day from home and 3 days in office. My workplace have an on site nursery that I salary sacrifice to.

I was also a single parent and have worked in local government all my life. The flexibility is great with many hybrid rules although lower down the scale pay isn't great. But I've managed to pay off a mortgage and put my daughter through a private school (with a sizable discount from a scholarship I should add) so I guess it is all relative.

Self-employed Mortgage Advisor

I earn £80k in comms. PR / marketing background. Work from home most days and reduced to 4 days a week when I had kids. It’s hard and demanding but manageable. That salary and flexibility has come with slowly working my way up though, I’m senior in my company. I live very rural and still work in an exciting part of comms and PR - the industry has moved on a lot in that way. I also do all pick ups and drop offs of children due to husbands job.

Many agencies and/or companies with in house comms are home based or have one day in a city only per week. Just something to fully explore incase you didn’t want to rule it out completely.

I have two close family members who are lawyers with young children and there is absolutely no flexibility and very little home working, their lives are very difficult.

My friend was going on maternity leave, heavily pregnant with second child and due to mat leave in 2-3 weeks. She had worked all day and was expected to be on call past 11pm. I was round her house and she was sending emails and having calls, 11pm. She had been with the company a long time, this was her second child.

From what I’ve seen of her, law is not family friendly! Pays excellent but not family friendly. She has however gone freelance due to this. However, she’s been in her profession 15+ years and built up experience and clients, she couldn’t have done that fresh off the bat. (And even working freelance is long days, days away meeting clients etc).

Tech sector, been a lone parent for many years and it’s been perfect. A lot remote work. Don’t have to be tech to work in it, obviously a lot of functions in the vendor side like marketing etc

I work 3 days a week as a legal auditor. FTE is £45,000. It's definitely family friendly. But I've got 17 years experience as a residential property solicitor.

Don't try law OP.

I love how casually psychiatry has been suggested - just a 6 year full time medical degree followed by subsequent specialism in psychiatry, phd, all that jazz. Easy money right

If you are staring out in a career and want to start late and finish early then it is very unlikely that you will be able to start on a salary of £50,000. That puts you in the top 20% of earners. You probably need to think slightly longer term. A lower salary might not seem worth the sacrifice now, but by the time your children are older, you will probably be earning more and have a more established career. That way if the marriage doesn't pan out for some reason, you in a stronger position.

Please don’t take offence and I love your work ethic. IMO these job opportunities are very rare to find and as many have said usually come from job progression before children. I’m not sure how old your DC is but the world is moving very fast now and staying relevant is very hard for anyone, let alone a SAHM. You sound like you have drive but feel this maybe should have been thought about before children? Realistically many find it hard to get placement In university for courses leaving school, let alone the more mature person. Then the restrictions on you being sole childcare provider. Good luck though.