WFH / hybrid, earning 50k+, what do you do?

[stuckandfedup]

I really, really, REALLY need a new job. I have been in my current area (teaching and research in healthcare) for 12 years now and have gained lots of skills (I think!) but I am SO bored and demotivated and fed up. I'm starting to feel as if I'll never be any good doing anything else.

So, I'm coming to MN for inspiration! I also a) need to maintain my current salary and b) want to either WFH or hybrid (eg: going into an office a couple of times a week max).

If your job matches that - what do you do? (And do you like it?)

I can only speak for NHSE, but WFH does not compensate how truly dreadful the working environment is.

University (manager, not teaching).

With your skills @stuckandfedup look at research/innovation manager roles in a university.

Marketing for a hi-tech co.

Sign up to HSJ jobs. Plenty of well paid short term contracts for roles they can't fill at the moment. I'm sure there are reasons for them being unfilled mind, but worth looking at for the experience.

Tom - depends where in NHSE, I worked there until recently. My area was fine, I was there many years and had good work life balance. I know plenty of people there who are miserable though and have dreadful managers.

I’m in a Head of Events/celeb management role and am on £70k, wfh with one day a week in the office but that was my choice tbh. Very varied and interesting, I love it most of the time.

That sounds great. How did you get into that, if you don’t mind me asking?

Maybe.

I've worked for several organisations in both the private and public sector (I'm not NHS any more), and NHSE is the only one I would never, ever return to. The lack of competence at all levels (including very senior), was astounding. And the bullying and gaslighting about workloads.... dreadful.

What I find bizarre is how much better the salaries are in the commissioning orgs. Work that would be banded at e.g. 7 in a trust is being done by 8bs in NHSE, and that disparity is reflected at all levels. Almost no one is lower than band 5, even for the most basic admin work. And this is despite the low competence (or maybe feeds into it, I don't know). It's insulting to the rest of the NHS really.

Access to the printer is the only reason I go into the office 😁

I work in property services - leasehold management. Senior PMs earn more than that and almost all companies offer hybrid roles nowadays. The skills shortage in our sector mean that if you're any good you can become senior in a relatively short period of time - 5 years? It's an exceedingly high stress environment though, with quite a lot of personal liability.

I work for Grant Thornton as an accountant. They are a superb employer. I g into office approx once a week and my tile is challenging. I work with a team based all over uk so nice n diverse. Earn £53000.

They genuinely want you to bring whole self to work and as long as you get your job done you can work where and when you want. A top ten employer in uk. Totally recommend. Lots of roles outside accounting too.

I've worked in consulting, which is thought of as being pretty cut-throat, but none of my colleagues there were as focused on sniping, undermining and backstabbing as lots of the staff at NHSE seemed to be. It was incredibly toxic.

My team not tile ffs

Civil servant

Change management, sometimes I look at what I do all day for what I get paid, and I genuinely can’t believe it’s happening.

I'm currently a civil servant working in a specific professional role. I'm hybrid, but can dictate which days I go in. The work is interesting and the work life balance is good

My colleagues at my old consulting firm are also hybrid, and that was also a good place to work. However, work life balance was a bit less good!

16 years specialist recruitment/headhunting. The issue you will have is that you may have to take a step back on salary if you want to move into a totally different specialism. I don't think there are many jobs where you can walk in knowing absolutely nothing and start on a £50k salary. Sales is probably the only area but i very much doubt you would be on a £50k base, you would have to hit targets/KPIs and wouldn't be guaranteed the same salary every month.

Would doing the same job but in a different company reinvigorate you? Otherwise, i think it's a case of taking a sidestep......finding something similar enough that it uses the experience you've built up over the years, and potential employers will get why you have applied and are worth the salary, but different enough to challenge you. Can you put your hand up for different roles in your current organisation where they already know how great you are?
It's still a very candidate short employment market out there at the moment so a great time to be looking for a change, but employers are still being pretty selective.

HR Manager, I love it.

Investment Analyst, earn c£30k for 20 hours per week. Permanent home working.

Senior LA officer. £57k. I go into the office 2-3 days a week but it’s very flexible. Most jobs in the council I work for are similar, unless you’re client-facing of course. Have a look on your local council website. Roles in the LA are very diverse - my background is teaching which is directly relevant to my role now but we have lawyers, accountants, HR, social workers, business support….I would imagine lots of people would be qualified for council roles.

Senior university lecturer. Teaching is now back face to face but I only teach a couple of days a week and wfh the rest of the time.

I’d avoid NHSE as there is potentially going to be some reorganisation, the number of jobs being advertised has significantly dropped off in the past six months and it’s about to merge with NHS Digital so might not be the best environment for a new starter.

There is the National Institute for Health and Social Care and also there are about 15 Academic Health Science Networks which might be of interest (some with NHS t&cs some are limited companies).

contracts manager - NHS but provider side not commissioning. Love my job.

What an interesting thread. Not sure how much of it helps the Op though because some of these jobs she won't have the qualifications nor experience for. I am a finance manager and work from home 1 or 2 days. Works really nicely for me.

Hybrid (2 days in the office 3 wfh)
60k plus 5k cash allowance for car (so not included in percentage for bonus and payrise) plus access to a stupidly cheap car scheme.

Head of Training for automotive manufacturer.

Have worked in the field, working my way up for over ten years though and am fairly specialised in the automotive sector. Do both classroom and online learning and can do the full training cycle rather than just write or just deliver. Most others to get my salary would not get it here in the midlands you'd have to be in an insurance or finance firm in London - makes it very difficult for me to ever leave!!

Business analysis in a nutshell is taking what the business wants to achieve (and sometimes involvement in deciding what that is), and working out how that needs to be done, from the high level to detailed system requirements for putting it into practice. Basically establishing what execs want and translating that into tasks to be completed. Lots of research, running workshops, pulling documentation together. Quite a lot of data. Being the middle link between business people and techies. Sometimes delivering training. At it’s best it’s really interesting and varied, and you should have a lot of freedom and control over your own work.