Tell me what you do for work

[Lindor2828]

I'm planning my escape from nursing, I just cannot imagine spending another 30 years of my working life working in such an environment.

Would anyone be keen to share with me what you do for work and what qualifications you needed? I would be willing to retrain, but if there are similar roles that I could get into with a nursing degree that I might be interested in then even better.

I just don't know what's out there anymore, and I feel like I've forgotten what I even enjoy too, so open to lots of suggestions, thank you!

I work as a logistics coordinator for imports and exports. I have worked in logistics for the last 10 years, it pays well and Brexit has made my job interesting.
I actually have a law degree and wanted to join the police, it's funny where you end up.

I'm a nurse too op and have wanted to leave for some time. However the are still parts of the job I love. I have been looking into teaching health and social care in a college. From what I can see you need a degree, and a teaching qualification is desirable but not essential.

I work in medical research. Have you looked at clinical trial roles in academia or with pharma. There are nursing roles but also options to start in data management/trial management.

Admin in a hospital, band 4 so not too far from a band 5. We have lots of ex nurses in the admin team. Might be too close to all the stress of your current role. I have patient contact and feel I'm making a difference without the stress of meds errors or aggressive patients/ visitors.
Alternatively social worker, one year conversion degree. Not sure if it would be less stressful than nursing but at least it's more likely to be 9-5 and wfh (in some places).
Good luck? How long have you been a nurse?

Librarian I love it. 😊

@Itonlytakesonetree

Teacher. Don't do it.

Another teacher saying don’t do it. This is only my 2nd year, and I am already planning an exit in about 2 years. It’s unsustainable.

Admin for a small business. Not exciting by any means, but there's not much stress.

I'm a SALT. It's a great job and you'd have lots of transferable skills from nursing.

I’ve just left practice nursing and moved into a community role.
How about doing a foot health Practitioner course and going self employed? Or ear microsuctioning?

I work in HR development (learning, career development, talent) for a National public sector organisation. As a sideline, I run my own career coaching business.

I joined my day job at entry level and did my CIPD qualification while working there. It’s very hard to get into HR without being CIPD-accredited, which costs, but often your work pays for it. So that can be a way round it.

I started my business because I enjoy the 1:1 coaching I do occasionally at work, but I never get the chance to do enough of it - so career coaching privately satisfies that urge to help people develop their career and gives me an additional income stream (I like the security of having a salaried job as well as I’m the high earner in my family.) My clients usually approach me, often following a recommendation, which suits me as it means I don’t get more clients than I can fit in my diary.

I know 2 former nurses who have done beauty courses and now doing well in the beauty industry doing things like botox, microblading, laser hair removal, microdermabrasion, LED face treatments etc. One opened her own place another works for a big company (Sk:n). Also with your knowledge of anatomy and physiology, the beauty courses would only be short courses for you, basically only learning how to use the machines.

If anyone wants to know more about career coaching, feel free to PM me - happy to answer any questions.

I am an operations manager for a large insurance firm. Im on 45k but don’t need a degree or anything to have achieved this role. I started out as a complaints handler for the insurance company around 6 years ago and progressed to team manager then made a move to operations in another department.

I work 35 hours a week mostly from home take my child to school and can pick up whenever always available to do the school things if they ever happen and am given a lot of autonomy and have varied and interesting days.

If you would be willing to start at an entry level role and learn the ropes there are lots of opportunities available in the kind of customer service environments.

A further idea is that my DH works in private medical industry and these companies often like to employ nurses for clinical advisory roles- hep writing guidance and policies etc ensuring the information is in line with clinical guidance. Further to that some PMI providers employ actual nurses in a nursing role to be a sort of triage to customers or offer support in healthcare but from a more customer service perspective than clinical. Have a look at vacancies on Bupa Axa Vitality etc to see if anything interesting if that’s an India that suits

Good luck

Have you considered moving into vet nursing? Your nursing skills would definitely be transferable and animals really do make the best patients! I used to do it before I had DC.

Now I'm a Payroll Manager - I have a degree in payroll management which I did on the job. For entry level I just did a cheap online course and got a payroll admin job. But it is the degree and CIPP membership that increase your chance of promotion and your earning potential.

After 40 yrs nursing and midwifery I’d had enough, now supermarket checkout, 3/4 days no stress easy hours, go home forget about it till next day.

Engineer, don’t have a degree but had experience which explains why I have the job I have now I.e. Must have a degree !

4th career change so far due to redundancy - Back to college at 53 for 3 years as my bunch could not get enough engineers.

They paid 👍👍👍

Youngsters see Engineering as boring 😳

Well I do drink a lot of tea in work though 😹

I’m a nurse.

I’m leaving the nhs to work in the private sector.
But not hospital.

Look into medical devices companies as they employ clinical devices trainers so look at the kit you use every day, Google the company and look at their websites for recruitment or indeed etc etc.

There’s R&D, loads of trials always going on. Its office hours Mon-Fri. You need your nursing qualifications and these jobs tend to be b6. We have a team of over 20 R&D nurses in my hospital.

How about specialist nursing in a subject you are passionate about? Pain specialist, medicines management, tissue viability….etc etc etc.

There are jobs out there off the wards/clinical (hell holes)

I'm a care technology advisor. Nobody quite rightly ever knows what that means! Basically I work for a care technology company, advising social workers and clients on pieces of equipment to help elderly/disabled people stay at home longer/lead more independent lives/stay safe whilst also reducing the need for social care and essentially saving the local authority money. Three days a week, 9-5, pay is slightly above min wage but I essentially plan my own workload and get to work from home when I'm not on visits to clients. We are expanding and always looking for new people 😊

NHS manager. Thankless job, don't bother. Same goes for corporate nursing.

A lot of our nurses left to be agency workers (pros and cons I know), pharma reps, counselling related to their dept (eg counselling living with a stoma, pelvic radiation disease etc but also would depend on your speciality).

The counselling one is actually really lucrative, varied and rewarding, although a "heavy" job

Have you considered working in recruitment for the medical sector? You'd be great at understanding requirement, selling the jobs to candidates. It's often considered stressful and long hours but I imagine it'd be nothing compared to being a nurse.

Salary c£20k base with no experience, commission could see you earning £30k-£50k+ once you know what you're doing.

I’m a CDP (Child Development Practitioner) in a school for children with complex additional support needs. I work with children and young people from primary one all the way up to senior level who have a range of conditions and disabilities. My role involves organising and overseeing the non curricular elements of each child’s school day, such as therapies, medical needs, feeding, personal care and use of equipment. I also head up class teams when they are without their teacher owing to absence or a vacancy.

I love my job. It’s varied, interesting and endlessly entertaining.

Also apols if already mentioned in the thread but how about a "day to day" specialty? Like an outpatients nursing role? I'm thinking gastroenterology, hepatology, sexual health.. those roles are 9 - 5, minimal on call, no wards and a band 6 level.

Do you work on a ward atm? Does your trust offer job swaps or anything if you feel like leaving? Mine does if you say that you are close to quitting. You couldn't pay me enough to go back onto a ward, but areas like theatre, day case surgical units, outpatients units, dialysis, chemotherapy units, endoscopy, imaging/x-ray etc are completely different. Plus the staff tend to be nicer as everyone is not understaffed and overworked.

Is it worth asking about a transfer elsewhere? They would prefer you to not quit the trust completely so hopefully will look into something for you.

Like at my trust for example, a lot of the theatre staff are due to retire soon, so they are funding nurses to take a qualification in anaesthetics to plug the soon to be staffing gap. They haven't offered funding for the last five years, but they need more staff so they are now. They are also recruiting year round for theatres.

It's worth speaking to your matron or career development team about options (if you have one). I fully understand wanting to just get out of the NHS, I've been there, I used to almost hope to get knocked over by a car on the walk to work so I don't have to go , but then I changed jobs and it was completely different. Good luck.

Thank you so much for all the replies. Sorry I should have given more info in my original post. I don't work on the wards and have been out of the hospital for some years already. I worked as a practice nurse when I first came into the community for three years and then moved onto school nursing and whilst the work life balance is SO much better with a young family than working shifts, it still feels like a thankless job - massively underfunded, short staffed, low morale, it's mostly safeguarding and report writing and holding a very large caseload whilst being paid a top band 5. I feel very over worked and under paid as all nurses are IMO.

I think I'm probably looking for a route out of nursing all together (although I do like the sound of research nursing/medical research, that sounds like it could be interesting so I'd been keen to find out more about that) I really appreciate all your replies