Single mum, on UC - can I learn something new?

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I’d love to learn a trade, I don’t want my entire future to be a struggle like it is now, but I have absolutely no idea where to start or if it’s even possible? Does anybody have any experience in this or know a direction in which to point me?

I’d love to be an electrician, but am open to anything to better myself!

You can always learn something new, and a trade is an excellent thing to learn; however, it generally requires apprenticing under a qualified tradesperson - you’d need to look into the logistics and finances of this and work out whether you’d be able to manage practically in terms of childcare and financially on apprentice wages / what benefit top up you could get alongside.

What skills or qualifications do you currently have? Have you ever worked? It’s also worth thinking about gaining experience in the workplace and rising up that way. Whilst entry level jobs in e.g. retail, customer service and admin are low paid, experience and commitment can lead you into management or strategy-based roles and take you into all kinds of organisations.

I would strongly encourage you to explore working in a field which is crying out for new people, like Technology rather than something familiar that lots of people want to do. .Lots of people dismiss Technology out of hand, thinking that they would be no good at it.

It's a really wide field, and still expanding. Lots of opportunities for lots of different roles, too.

We have lots of people at work who for example test things like an app on a phone. If you know how to use a phone, you can do that.

Since there are always openings, companies are very keen to recruit people and often train them up.

Very flexible, especially now lots of us are working from home, too in really good rated.

All the best.

Check out Vision2Learn for free courses to boost your CV. They have all sorts and they're proper Level 2 qualifications that you can do online

Or try the one month free on LinkedIn learning - loads of training courses on there around excel, software, tech etc but also skills like running your own business and entrepreneurship

Loads of free courses here > www.open.edu/openlearn/

Try a few, see if anything takes your interest. I'm furloughed at the moment and doing a couple that might help me take a different direction in my current career.

Thank you all for your replies. I’m feeling really stuck at the minute and see little point to my life I guess.

I’m in my thirties, I have worked, mainly admin based roles (nhs complaints for 5 years before kids) I have a levels which I don’t believe are worth the paper they’re written on) I just don’t know how to make a better for my kids

What about nurse training?

Apprenticeships are no longer age barred, you may find an Electrician apprenticeship on www.findapprenticeship.service.gov.uk/apprenticeshipsearch, your UC may be able to continue as a top up, wages increase significantly in year two. You can also get support and advice from nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/ follow your dreams.

I started off doing an access course at a local college as I only had as levels and out of date. I'm now doing Occupational therapy at uni. I've had the majority of my childcare paid throughout. I kept my full universal credit through the college year and I get full student finance plus the odd grant and would have been able to keep some UC if my new partner hadn't moved in.
There's also now various health based apprenticeships making a return. How about nursing or paramedics?
There's also new grants about for a lot of health courses starting this year to make it easier.