Want to work towards 30k, but how???

[solosunflower]

Hello everyone.

As the title suggests, I need to move in a new direction with better earning potential. I'm soon to be a first-time, single mum and want to build a better life for us. I'm 38. Worked in education prior to hospitality and hated it.

Currently earn 20K in hospitality managing a small team. There is no opportunity for progression and the hours aren't family friendly.

I have the usual things to pay for: car, mortgage etc. I can't afford to take time out for retraining, so I would need to self-study in my spare time. A lot of people have suggested 'tech'. I've researched this area for weeks now and honestly getting nowhere. I've also been looking at finance. Maybe self-study AAT and getting an entry level job off that and keep moving upwards. Civil service jobs look interesting, but I'm yet to see anything I have the right experience for.

Any sort of suggestions or points in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

I understand this isn't going to happen overnight, but I want to plan and look to the future.

Public sector customer service management roles typically pay 27k+ more if you go into emergency service contact centres and take in shift allowance considerations

There’s lots of freelancing work available. In your situation I took a couple of courses with monthly payments of about £25 and moved up that way. Also did extra bits turned up everyday with a positive attitude and made myself employable

Civil service entry level (AO or possibly EO) are often open to really broad experience. The job descriptions can sound quite convoluted but at these grades you often don't need prior experience. It depends where in the country you are but this could be immigration casework, job centre, passport office, anything really. There's a lot of customer service stuff, or admin. You would need to come up with some strong competency examples from your previous work then once you're in, start to move up. I think HEO (one grade above EO) is about 30k, then it goes up more steeply from there. You can create competency examples from volunteering even in case you do any. A lot of people get a foot in the door anywhere then build an idea of what's available and start to specialise.

Customer service for a tech company? That's probably the best way in

I would recommend the construction industry, it is often overlooked by women I find and understandably.

I started as a trainee qs (no qualifications) on £25k and within 4 years have more than doubled my salary. Lots of benefits such as a company car, remote working and progression once you have a seat at the table.

I would search for 'trainee qs roles' with larger companies like Bell Group, Kier, costain and go from there.

There is such a shortage in the industry, I get multiple messages from recruiters daily. If you can sell your experience I find construction companies are great at investing in their staff!

I feel that anyone who is computer literate and has some common sense will do well.

Good luck!

What is freelancing? Courses in what? I always see this on here and feel stupid for not knowing what people mean, like is ‘freelancing’ a specific thing or are there loads of areas you can free lance in?

@SavingKitten I thought the same, you can freelance in basically ANY job. Very vague.

No idea on the courses either.

More info would be good!

Thank you. What exactly is it that you do?

I know you said you hated education, was this in schools?

How about becoming an adult tutor for hospitality apprentices? A lot of private training providers offer training towards your tutor and assessor qualification while you work. You could deliver level 2 and level 3 hospitality qualifications.

I have looked at emergency service contact centres. I'm about 45 minutes from the Nottingham one. Issue I've found is the rota. I'd never be able to organise child care around it. I have little to no family support, so I will have to solely use a child minder.

Generally any type of teaching or support work!

Agree keep looking at the civil service, worth going in at similar to your current salary now then there are loads of opportunities to move up. Never big mega bucks but decent plus they are generally very family friendly and flexible.
i moved to civil service from another career and although on paper took quite a pay cut, because I can work full time around my family responsibilities which I could never do in the other job, I’m taking home more money and hoping to progress.

I earn that doing a very basic admin job.

I would try and do some office admin volunteering, I did half a day a week at a local charity for a year and that was enough to get the job I'm in now. Plus make sure you're confident using MS office suite. Lots of YouTube tutorials.

Good luck and well done for wanting to climb the ladder!

What qualifications do you have? I'm guessing if you've done teaching you must at least have a degree?

I'm a woman in construction, and whilst I love it, I can't see site hours/travel times being that friendly to a single parent.

8am start an hour or more away is not uncommon. Staying over for more distant sites.

IT sales can be really big money even if you are only halfway competent <bitter marketing manager>. IT is generally family friendly, I’ve working hybrid and remotely long before covid.

take a look at some IT companies who work in education and/or hospitality. For customer service you could only provide 1st line support without any tech experience. Maybe look at the specific hospitality systems you use currently and see who provides that. What are your IT skills like? If you aren’t using word, excel and PowerPoint then brush up on them.

If you want to look more seriously into tech as a developer or an infrastructure engineer, something like this might work:
getintotech.sky.com/

If you're more interested in/inclined to the business angle, look at Associate Product Manager jobs or evening courses. This is a career that relies on broad experiences with good organisation and communication skills rather than technical ones.

From your comment about being near Nottingham, what about the food production industry? Loads of employers in that region are crying out for staff, in all sorts of areas.

PUBLIC SECTOR - it isn't as badly paid as people pretend, the sickness and holiday perks are pretty good, then there is the pension etc.

Totally agree

In which case look at their headquarters for civvie jobs or local authority for posts. Public sector is good for utilising transferrable skills and pays a good salary too

My advice on how to approach a career change is to remember that it’s not what you want to do that matters, but what you can prove to an employer you can do. It takes some planning but I did the following -

List all your demonstrable transferable skills - customer service, team leadership, admin etc It’s important that they are skills that you can demonstrate to a future employer that you can do.

Search for jobs you could conceivably commute to at the 20k to 30k range. Exclude all those that don’t offer career progression. Then find the ones that you have the most matching skills for - you may find that you only have one or two matching skills.

Are any of those skills that you’re currently lacking that you could get experience for over the next year? For example, can you ask your boss if you can help with the accounts, dealing with suppliers, event marketing, running a recruitment round? Can you volunteer locally so you can demonstrate other skills?

The skills you already have + the skills you could conceivably acquire = the skill set you should be aiming to have by this time next year. Depending on where you live it may take time to work out what kind of jobs are available, and therefore what skills are required, among your local employers.

@IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads single mother here also. I have to dictate that I cannot be on site until 10am/11am I've never had a problem with people working around this. Most people are quite relieved 😅

I have been in the industry for nearly 10 years though. At the beginning it perhaps wouldn't have worked. Now the meeting can't happen without me, so they have to wait 🤷🏼‍♀️

I don't have any sites more than 2.5 hours away, so make it work. Also don't normally attend site more than once a week and work from home the rest of the time. I only work part time. Which also isn't ideal but we make it work! Haha

I think it's more adaptable than you think, especially with the right team around you.

This ^ I definitely wouldn't rule out civil service.

Focus on your transferable skills for the job. Education and hospitality gives you shitloads of organisational and people management experience.

It's a good career path, less secure than the old days but for a single parent you'll have family friendly policies, flexible working, parental leave etc

When your child is older you might be able to work term time too.

I would definitely look at roles in civil service or local government - in addition to predictable hours and good job security, there are huge advantages in having a good pension with smaller contributions than you would make in the private sector, and greater holiday entitlement too. Often there is better flexibility as well, if children are ill, etc. It would be relatively easy to get up to the salary you are looking for with halfway decent general skills.