What is your steady, secure and fairly paid job?

[NW2SW]

There are loads of careers out there that I’ve never heard of. Possibly not the most exciting on paper, but in reality offer job satisfaction, fairly paid and life balance. What are they?

I’m approaching mid 30s, earning £40k in digital marketing and I hate it. Between the constant imposter syndrome, toxic work places, unrewarding work and very few hard skills - I just cannot see myself sticking this out for another 30 years.

I’m happy to retrain, so long as it’s possible part time and isn’t massively pricey. I have a BA/MA related to my current job, so I’m not looking for another degree. I’d like to keep as much of my salary as possible, or at least know I can progress back to it fairly quickly.

Some of the careers that I’m looking into are; dental hygienist, mortgage broker, archivist...

I know the golden ticket atm is to learn to code, but I just don’t think that’s what I’m looking for. I sit chained to a computer all day as it is.

I work for an MP and don't have to worry about losing my job until the next general election. That counts as secure in these times, right?!
The pay is set by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) because MPs can't be trusted to make these kinds of decisions after that whole duck house thing. It's modest but fair.

I do casework which is an amazing mix of the completely trivial and the utterly harrowing.
I like it.

Yes @tunnocksreturns2019 all the University's near me are internal applicants only. I would love work at one.

Another train driver. Shifts are awful, pay is good, pension is good, and you leave the job behind the second you walk out the door. Incredibly low barrier to entry in terms of qualifications but very competitive now in terms of numbers applying.

Teaching.

If you want to retain the salary (plus earn a lot more) would you consider doing new business for a digital agency? That way you wouldn’t need to retrain.

That’s what I do and I’d love to have the amount of knowledge you must have from actually working on accounts.

I work in HR and it’s very competitive. I have a degree and a MA in HR Management and I still had to work my way up from HR Admin. Digital Marketing isn’t a transferrable skill so you would need to train and wouldn’t be starting off anywhere near the salary you have now unfortunately

I wouldn't pick recruitment unless you enjoy sales and pitching - it's partly commission-based and you need to get X number of people placed in a month for your target. It is a hard-sales role, that happens to be about people, and you didn't sound keen on sales.

Sorry ignore me, didn’t see your comment about not being a sales person. If that’s the case absolutely don’t consider recruitment, it’s not lovely and fluffy and about finding people jobs, it’s the hardest sales job I’ve ever done and has lots of strict targets.

@Turnedouttoes I'm assuming new biz is equally sales driven? I was thinking going SaaS side and working in house within Client management type role could be an option, it's just very much about finding the right company. But as @notimagain said, noticing feels stable corp side atm.

*nothing

You've got agree so I agree with PPs about CS but you might specifically want to apply for Fast Stream. For most of the schemes they don't care what degree subject was. There are 15-20 schemes to apply for. I started on £31k. In 3 years I was on £55k. 3 years later I'm on over £65k so lots of progression options. Have worked in multiple departments with wonderful exciting opportunities. And if you don't like a post it's easy to move! Message me if you have questions.

@Dinosauraddict never heard of Fast Stream and it's open atm! I'm guessing this year will be super competitive but I'm going to take a look -Thank you.

OP you mentioned archivist - I wouldn't necessarily recommend as you said you don't want to do another degree but you would absolutely need to get a specific master's qualification in Archive Administration for this. Also outside of London and maybe one or two other of the largest cities the majority of jobs are in county archives which have been decimated by cuts. Average pay is only c.mid 20k. It's also very hard to find a permanent full time contract.

It is honestly the most interesting job I've ever had and hours/flexibility/lack of stress are all great but it's not the easiest job to get into.

Of your other options, something like a mortgage broker sounds quite good, or like other posters have suggested the NHS or CS - pay not amazing and there are A LOT of frustrating things about the public sector but also a lot of job security which is worth its weight in gold in times like this, usually good t&c, and the opportunity to move internally once you're in.

Civil service. Therr are fast stream and grad scheme job vacancies as well as normal job applications

@thevassal ohhh, that's what I was worried about in terms archivist. I do think I'd love it, especially a specialism within digital archiving. I'm just not sure I can take the risk of entering a dwindling job pool... again. I've found a few traineeships but they start at £15k which just isn't feasible, or really meant for me I guess.

Also Civil Service, I joined on a graduate scheme (but not Fast Stream, I joined what is now the Tax Specialist Programme). Highly recommend although entry is competitive.

Also, a PP said it's difficult to work at home in the CS but this is very role dependent- I've been at home full time since lockdown began, and prior to that we were encouraged to work 2 days out of 5 at home, so this hasn't been an issue for me. It depends what job you do.

@NW2SW

HR, hmmm - I'm not sure I could handle the good cop/bad cop and internal politics.

Although I'm really not a sales person I am considering if I could hack marketing recruitment. Ironically, I really enjoy helping friends and family with job hunts - offering support, CV writing, interview advice etc.

Lots of internal politics in HR, yes, but I really enjoy the advice/coaching side. I'm in HR and have a team of managers I coach through their people issues when they need support. So if you enjoy helping others solve problems using your specialist knowledge you may enjoy the advisory/consultancy side of it.

Agree with @emsyj37 I wfh FT now in CS and did 2 days a week pre-pandemic. Pension isn't as good as it used to be, but still one of the best going. I've just taken 6 months fully paid mat leave and have gone back on compressed hours so the benefits and flexibility are really good. Pay and things like A/L entitlement does vary between departments, but once you're in you can shop around.

Also Civil Service. I do work in IT though but don’t do a lot of coding, my job is a bit of a specialism. But loads of Project management, communications, user experience jobs too.
I don’t know where you are based but it’s not all London - there are some big CS sites all over the country.
Work life balance is usually very good.

[quote NW2SW]@IamTomHanks as someone in IC what do you look for on a CV? I'm in an area of the country with a lot of similar industry to yours. Is there a qualification, would you expect someone to sidestep straight into a management role or is it a case of starting from the bottom again?[/quote]
For me the main things I would look at, that would play a factor in what level you're brought in at, would be:

1. Industry experience
2. Change management experience
3. Strong writing skills & critical thinking skills

If you don't have industry experience you probably wouldn't be able to go straight to management, but if you have lots of general experience and good writing skills and critical thinking skills you could transition to just below.

Energy industry salaries are the best in the biz for Marketing/Comms so salary wise you might not take a hit going a rung or two lower.

Should have added that I’ve been able to WFH during the pandemic but my dept don’t generally encourage it. However several friends in other Civil Service depts have WFH for years and there was a general move towards ‘Smart working’ before the pandemic.

Customer Service Supervisor for a group of zone 2-3 London Underground stations. Fair secure, well-paid, interesting, but at times incredibly stressful. However, when I book off, I don't take my work home with me. I work three shifts covering 24 hours on five different stations. You have to start as an entry grade customer service assistant on £24k and work up though.

@CloudsCanLookLikeSheep embarrassingly I'm not sure what a advisory/consultant in HR does. Sounds like from pp I would need a qualification of some sort.

From personal experience HR support in my field had been very low, with zero coaching. I do agree there's an opportunity there but I get the feeling employers of marketers like to keep it that way.

I'm not that fussed about WFH, especially after working in my kitchen for 6 months. Flexibility is always handy though. I do always seem to have to chase jobs - moving cities, long commutes etc. My current is normally a 65min round trip and I'm not sure I want to go back to it tbh.