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

My friend is an accountant in a managerial position for the navy. She trained in her late 20s early 30s after having her first child. She has two now and works from home during school hours. Gets paid very well. Another friend who is a SAHM (4 kids) was a teacher prior and will soon go back to teaching foreign students (asian) online during 9am to 1pm for term time only. Won't make a fortune but she will have an extra income. I have two kids, I'm a clinical psychologist in a managerial position and will return to work after mat leave to work 30 hours term time only. I earn well but could earn a lot more if I worked for myself and saw clients privately. The training is a killer though and the market is a bit saturated now. If I could turn back time I'd have trained as an accountant probably. My other friend has 3 kids same job as me and she is happy with work/life balance, does 25 hrs per week. I have lots of friends and all work, but the better paid ones are in project management, engineering or accountancy and they can work from home which helps. Just thought to give you some examples.

I get over 50k in social work assessments - I work from home except a few visits a week, I work completely to my own schedule and can do school runs. I’ve got a really good set up, but It’s exhausting working full time, doing everything for DC and being at home with some kind of expectation that I’ve got it easy and should also do all of the housework/laundry etc. I would prefer to be in an office but I couldn’t manage everything. (Yes I want a divorce)

There are lots of comms and marketing roles that can be flexible and are not based in London for the salary you are looking at. Suggest looking at NHS, local councils, bigger third sector organisations, and the civil service.

I think even a couple of years a go this was true. But huge swathes of software engineer entry level jobs are being axed.

Even in companies with excellent growth, decent revenue and good VC backing are not replacing engineers or growing their teams.

The tide has turned unfortunately on software roles.

There are thousands of newly qualified nurses and midwives who can’t get jobs in the NHS. 20 years ago bears absolutely no resemblance to now!

I'm in Scotland and after your first 4 years of teaching the salary in 55k. It goes up very quickly. Is it much less where you are?

Don’t laugh but have you thought about nursing? The training is 3 years, 50/50 (half in work placement, half in lectures). Once qualified if you do another year (look up SCPHN degree) then you can work in the community rather than hospitals and work 9-5, no weekends or bank holidays. There are a plethora of career opportunities in nursing both in and out of hospitals which people don’t realise. Plus the NHS is stable employment with an excellent pension scheme. I’m 20 years qualified next year and it’s the best thing I’ve done career wise.

I would not recommend law. It takes an age to get qualified and it’s very inflexible in the early years. I now earn a reasonable salary in a satisfying job but it took a lot of sacrifice to get here.

I work in the voluntary sector which is often flexible and supportive. I earn £50k pro rata in a specialist job and mainly WFH. All large charities need PR officers although you might not get the salary you want unless it was a more senior role.

If you are thinking about retraining or taking a degree or similar, then waht about Computer Science/programming as this is often Wfh/flexible.

Not sure why people are voting saying you’re unreasonable. They ate probably in different careers. The great thing about the PA market is there are alot of remote positions on offer. I will only work remotely now, companies insisting on 5days in an office are lagging behind and clinging to micromanagement strategies and refusing to move with the times. Don’t give decent wage bcus the £ is wasted on overpriced office space to keep the gov happy. All a smokescreen. If they wanted to cut emissions, care for environment etc etc hybrod and remote would still be standard. But it became a farce like covid and we went backwards. Join some decent agencies and let them know what you will or won’t consider. Don’t talk yourself into alternatives. What you want is out there. If not do what I did, stepped away from employed roles that dictated to me. I became a self employed freelancer, and reflected that on my online profile and let companies that were the right fit and mindset come to me. Especially as a PA you can EASILY become a VA there’s a huge market out there.

Tbh i hate when people suggest pausing earlier in the day to pick up kids and logging back on in the evening - realistically, nobody actually properly logs back on in the evening, or those who do end up burned out.
People that suggest it want to work part time around their kids but still be paid full time, and as a manager and a parent myself it's something I tend to say no to for the reasons above. I've managed people trying to do it and it just doesn't work - it's not helpful to have staff working at a time when nobody else is so they can't do any meetings or check things with people if needed.

Theres plenty of jobs can be 'family friendly' you simply have to accept what you are looking for is part time work, and put in a request to drop to 3 or 4 days a week. You can ask for eg to 30hrs a week as 5 x 6hr days from 9-3 for eg, or 27.5hrs likewise split across 5 days to give the shorter days you want.
Lots of workplaces will agree to you reducing your hours and having a shorter day to accommodate children as long as you accept you will have to sacrifice some pay.

This is similar to my job - I earn just over 50k, WFH full time (travel to London about once a quarter), my job is fairly flexible (I have colleagues who work around school pick up). I’m a Project Manager at a national charity. It’s a wonderful role, I feel very lucky.

Development Director at a school in the private sector or universities. Some academy chains also have this role. Would use your PR skills, has a lot of flexibility except for set events which may include some evenings and school holidays.

Learn a trade. Set up a women only trade site. Use your PR skills to aggressively market that women can now have women trades persons in their house doing work. More women own houses on their own then men, because they are better at getting their finances sorted. But also plenty of women like the idea of women doing their trades work and leaving women, not men, in their house whilst they are out working.
If you make millions you can send 10 percent this way.

AI Governance roles on the other hand are a prime opportunity. Learn all about ISO 42001, EU-AI act, NIST AI RMF, US state level legislations etc Lots of companies are in panic mode trying to figure out how to actually control all the AI they are using and provide assurance to regulators and clients that everything is how it should be.

How about social media management? Have your own consultancy. I presume there's some transferable skills with PR and if you work for yourself you choose your hours. Plus can do a lot of it from home if needed.

I do know someone who had a highly paid job in finance and gave up work after having her second child. She had a good maths degree and Chartered Accountant qualification.

After a few years she got a job as a teaching assistant, loved it and became a teacher. She teaches maths full time and earns reasonably well.

You might have to do some sort of refresher course if you want a career in law - presumably you have some legal qualifications. There are solicitors who work part time, the wife of a friend of my son is one and she earns a fair whack alongside caring for her two young children. He is a teacher(senior), so his work is quite family friendly though not as much as people often think, ie teachers don't have all the holidays the kids get, they have much preparation and have to go into school for a certain amount of time during the breaks. It works for them, they have a good lifestyle.

You must still be quite young, the world is your oyster so it is said but you may not start off on the sort of salary you'd like, it takes time to build up to that so be prepared. It will worth it eventually.

Good luck!

Running a legal practice isn’t family friendly

What about teaching law? Or editing legal documents?

I'm sure there are plenty of law-adjacent roles you could do. Family mediation perhaps? You could even run your own legal practice if you wanted to?

Yes agree with this entirely.

Part of my reasoning for never being a SAHM is you simply can't jump back in on a salary you want. Especially if like OP says she is completely unqualified! I am a nurse and on £60,000 specialist role. That's taken 16 years of experience to get into.

I'm a dentist and that is very flexible and self employed. Have you thought about dental hygiene and therapy? It's a 3 year degree but can be self employed and most that I know work 3/4 days a week. You can also be a locum which is more flexible around your husband's work.

This is misleading. She doesn't live in London and would be starting as an ECT. I have been a teacher for 26 years and am only just recently on £50k.
Most mums I know are leaving teaching as most definitely not family friendly.

In thinking about future careers; do think about the impact of AI. Does your DH do something that AI could replace? If so you retraining in a field that is less vulnerable to AI could give your family some resilience

Accountancy can be incredibly flexible. You don't need to go ACA route. You can teach yourself/remote learning with either ACCa or CIMA. Booking keeping and finance roles are often very flexible or you can be self employed and pick your own hours. Depending on what sector you end up in the money can be very good.