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

Have you tried looking at Head of Communications jobs in charities? The salary and flexibility is there, I have worked in roles where we had ex journalists in that role. Might be an idea

Civil service. There are various roles. I'm sure there will be something for your skillset. Many roles (not all!) have a lot of flexibility.

OP, have you thought about Risk/Compliance/Governance? You can normally get into these and train on the job (start around £30k) and they can be pretty flexible. You sound interested in a professional career and it would probably give you that. Lots of overlap with law.

I don't know what career is for you, but I do know that childcare is a joint expense and it may not look worth it on paper for you to work right now, the benefits add up and you will be contributing to a retirement fund etc plus providing a security blanket for yourself and something for you to do once your kids are older.

Self employed within a firm used to be the norm, but there are a lot more employed adviser roles now. So no, not vital, but will largely depend on the type of firm that you join.

Local government is going through huge changes. I don't think it's a solid area of work currently and there will be lots of displaced comms and PR professionals with years of experience looking for new roles.

I haven’t read through all the posts so sorry if duplicating!

I’d say your best bet is to use your experience in PR to make a sideways move into another related area. This is the best way to get the salary you’re looking for and the level of flexibility that comes with mid-level + roles.

Any large corporate will have departments that could utilise this experience- internal comms, press relations, events management etc. Good chance of finding regional head offices and/or London office with hybrid working meaning only 1 day a week in office or less etc. (some of my team in London based office are 1 day a fortnight in office). Role structures tend to be assistant, junior manager, manager, senior manager/lead, head of, Director. I’d say you’re after Manager or Senior Manager level if you have around 10 years PR experience and it’s a sideways move- don’t undersell yourself! Manager salaries probably somewhere in region of £50-70k, senior manager £60-85k (London salaries as that’s my experience!)

best of luck!!

the civil service is family friendly and it is possible to go in at a high level. Have a look on the civil service job site

I work in tech and my job is very flexible day to day and pretty well-paid. I'm sure it depends whom you work for though!

You don’t need to work because your DH earns really well, but teaching doesn’t pay enough for you? This makes no sense. If you don’t need the money you could do anything, including low paid roles (of which teaching isn’t, in the greater scheme of things). You could even volunteer. Why limit yourself to only high paying roles if your family is so well off?

Maybe it depends on the area of law. I do employment law and most of the time I love it. I would do it again no problem 🤣

Lots of roles across financial services can be really flexible, although it varies across employers. I’ve had great flexibility in both my current and previous employers, one was pensions/life insurance and the other a challenger bank, working in risk and compliance. Of course it takes time and experience to earn that flexibility and autonomy as you progress. Any roles in the industry advertised at remote and non customer facing, will likely have the opportunity to choose your own hours within reason.

If you’re looking for flexibility and a high salary, maybe look into UX Design or Project Management. Both allow for a lot of remote work and freelance opportunities once you’re established. Since you have a PR background, you already have the communication skills, you’d just need a specific certification rather than a whole new degree.

I've just done this for 5 years, working 4 short days a week (paraplanning, mortgages). I moved on from the company a year ago due to having enough of working in a small family business (favouritism etc.) but I think I will go back into it at some point.as I have the exams to be a self-employed adviser.

Local authority OP.

Educational psychologist is a serious long game though!

Decent teaching experience (so PGCE plus ECT years as an absolute minimum but realistically several years past ECT), conversion degree to get GBC status, doctoral training which would probably take several years to get a place to start. I doubt op could get from where she is now to even her first newly qualified job in a decade.

I don't get the impression that the op is up for that.

I think AI has reduced the number of positions for graduate accountants. Law is not flexible in the early stages and in some areas the hours are simply awful - I am thinking of litigation but it's generally not family friendly. Maybe the civil service as a solicitor might be okay. I am a lawyer and I do have a lot of flexibility but it has taken me decades to get there and I worked like a dog for most of those years.

Interpreting. I work freelance and charge between £50-60 ph. Work the hours I choose with a mix of face to face and online bookings.

Wow

Teaching can be very well paid if you get off the bottom rung. Most teachers I work with tend to do that first then have the children after so the mat leave doesn't affect the career too much but in your case you have the children already so that's an advantage. Plus I find a lot of teachers who have been promoted are done so on the basis of being a great teacher which has no bearing on a lot of the skillsets required to be a middle/senior leader. If you've got experience with processes, communication, are tech savvy and can do a bit with data you could fly in education, the trick being first getting through training etc and off the bottom rung and by then your kids may be of an age where you don't need as family friendly a job.

Bookeeper?

Optician? That wouldn't include the working from home part but I've always thought it would be a nice interesting job where you could pick your hours and live anywhere.

There absolutely are. Dh is a company director in a trade. It’s very niche, only a few companies in the UK do similar, but it’s largely in the restaurant industry or selling bespoke or off the shelf products he’s designed to home cooks. He works roughly 8:30-3, but has to be on email and in touch with employees and clients from first thing in the morning until evening, but it’s more like keeping his eye on emails and taking calls while driving dc to sports. He works from home except one day a week he is on site leaving after the school run and gets home about 7pm. He earns probably £70k ish a year, but it’s as a director, so not really a set salary every month so varies year to year.

I am not working at the moment, due to long term illness, but when I go back I aim to be able to earn about £50k PT doing freelance scientific copy editing. I’m self employed, so set my own hours, choose my own clients. Some people easily make £100k FT but I have no desire to work that much. When I was younger and building my career, I absolutely did the 200 mile London commute and it was well worth it back then. I’m also a co-director in dh’s company so I draw a £2k salary for that in addition to any earnings of my own.

The difference is neither of us was ever a SAHP. We both have been building careers since our mid 20s, so have 20 years experience and a strong network. We have very specific skills. I have a PhD. Plus we both have business experience. And we’ve planned work around family life rather than the other way around. It is totally possible. But you can’t just pop into it.

Im a civil servant - i work around 22hrs a week for around £50k (grade 6). 2 days in the office per week, two days from home, one day off completely. Im based in London but our Dept does have offices in other parts of the UK and I'd be able to switch there if I wanted to. You could look for CS comms / marketing roles - not quite PR but might get you close.

Edit to add - my two wfh days, I finish at 3pm for school pick up and so the DC only go to after school club on my office days. Works really well for us.

We don't consider the university of our graduate trainee recruits, only the degree classification.

The regions are less competitive for TCs because more aspiring trainees are desperate to work in London for the Big 4.