What should a 37 year old mum of 3 retrain as?

[NickyHeath]

I’m thinking about retraining as something - actually it’s just training as I don’t think my previous humanities degrees & patchy job history really count as being trained for anything We can afford for me not to be earning for a few years while retraining.

What would you do? Things I’ve thought of are law, teaching, social work... I’m numerate in the sense of GCSE grade B, but things like accountancy are not for me. I’m very good at reading/research, writing, get on well with people. My ideal job would give me flexibility to be at the school gates a few days a week, but wouldn’t be based from entirely from home - colleagues are important to me.

What should I look into?

I wouldn’t choose social work (with children) if you want to be at the school gates a few times a week or want a healthy work/home balance.

I left children’s social work a couple of years ago because it didn’t fit well with home life /children for me (though others obviously might manage it better).

Obviously there are other types of social work though so I guess it depends what type of social work job you’d be aiming for.

Overall though I would choose social work unless you actually really wanted or was passionate about going into that type of work.

The same can be said about teaching as the points made about SW above. It's tough, all consuming and you'll find it hard to make time for your own family or get a work life balance in the first few years of a teaching career certainly.
What are you interested in?

Proof reading/editing?

Professional declutterer?

Virtual EA/PA - keeping diaries, booking appts, researching holidays,

(Online) tutoring for homeschooled children?

Even though being a teacher is a very hard job it seems to fit in with a lot of what you are good at and you could use your degree as a starting point and add a PGCE.

I retrained in my 30s to teach ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) & English/Literacy to adults. I enjoyed it. I worked in a college so it mostly coincided with school term times & was part time, flexible & massively less stressful than primary/secondary teaching. You could also teach various subjects at FE level to 16-18 year olds rather than adults. Obviously salary was in no way comparable with Law though!

Human resources

I view teaching and social work as vocations, same for all healthcare. You either really want to do them or you don’t, if you don’t have the strong desire don’t do them.

Would you consider the NHS? Not all work in the NHS is hands on clinical work. There’s a quiz to give you ideas of the options available.

www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/findyourcareer

Management consultant

Philosophy professor

Expedition leader

Computer programmer

Occupational Therapist.

If you like reading and researching, perhaps look into becoming an archivist? Librarian?

I wouldn't recommend Law. It's quite a long haul, not an intrinsically interesting field of study, traineeships are hard to find and then the work itself often stressful and not particularly well paid. It is also a field, parts of it anyway, ripe for AI programmes to replace the work of people.

Radiographer

With regard to proofreading and editing, a lot of that is now offshored and it's not well paid either. A bit hand to mouth

Civil service - usually flexible roles in terms of hours (though some departments less so than others I believe) and your humanities background/liking for research and writing, and getting on with people would work well

If you’ve got the chance to train up pick something you will enjoy and really get something back from.

What are your interests?

Cyber. There are lots of starter qualifications. Once you have experience you can specialise is sector and subject e.g. Risk, operational, research.

Nursing? I’m 35 and retraining as a mental health nurse in September.

I have a decade of social work experience and can’t think of a SW area that would allow you to do school pick-up a few times a week. Maybe fostering? If you were mega lucky!

As a full time teacher you would never be at your own child’s school gate and you will barely see other adults unless you have a TA in your class.

Definitely not social work - long hours and very stressful. There are other caring jobs that are unqualified like care managers but you would need experience.

Occupational Therapy seems like a good job - interesting work in abundance across all sectors and jobs all over the U.K. and abroad.

Civil Service is a good bet - lots of roles.

Sommelier

Marketing, particularly B2B rather than consumer. The Chartered Institute of Marketing has its own qualifications starting from entry-level.