Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

If you are fully WFH (or almost) and earn around £50k, what do you do?

367 replies

YouCouldUseAFlakeOrTwo · 18/10/2023 12:07

My job feels like a set of golden handcuffs at the moment - decent-ish salary, lots of WFH, decent-ish pension, plenty of annual leave, nice people - but I am bored to tears and fed up. I've been working in the same area for over 15 years and really, really need a change. However at the same time I feel a bit paralysed because of the above benefits. I know, for example, that I absolutely want to maintain WFH and I need to maintain a similar salary, at least for the next few years.

I have job-searched but I don't really know what I'm looking for, sector-wise. I tend to stick to what I know but obviously that just brings up the same kind of thing I'm doing now, which I want to get away from!

So I'm looking for random inspiration. If you've got a fully or mainly WFH job and earn around £50k, what do you do? What's out there?

OP posts:
Pizzatrip · 21/10/2023 09:09

Water, gas, electric etc.

I work for one.. we’ve recently hired a new manager at ~55k, who has no experience in the industry, but had good managerial experience.

Pizzatrip · 21/10/2023 09:10

That was in response the the poster asking what utilities are

Bowbobobo · 21/10/2023 09:18

Pammela2 · 20/10/2023 13:37

How did you get into this? Were you a teacher before?

Show quote history

I got a relevant professional qualification after studying an arts subject at uni then joined a training firm for that profession as I hated actual practice. Went freelance when DC were small so I could be home for them. It wasn’t the plan but it’s worked out well, so much so that I’m putting off retirement as I love my work so much. Like a PP, I could earn over £100k but choose not to as the marginal tax rate makes it a nonsense. This has been the case for 20 years.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

Employment advice Jobs
sarah419 · 21/10/2023 18:27

have you thought about taking up a new hobby in your spare time? or learning a new skill that aids in your job? or an added qualification? your work condition are ideal and it’s likely you’ll be compromising some of the benefits which isn’t worth it. so try to challenge ur self with something else while you enjoy the stability and the wfh work/life balance it offers

Father1 · 21/10/2023 20:47

What do you do?

EnterNowhere · 21/10/2023 22:04

I work for a utilities company, I’m on £42k but don’t WFH but my boss would be on about £56k & bonuses and is very rarely in the office. He runs a small dept of around 30 people. Think a lot of his time is online meetings/working on projects etc.

BookishKitten · 22/10/2023 00:47

Tell me more! How did you get into the job?

BookishKitten · 22/10/2023 00:49

SorrySadDog · 18/10/2023 21:47

Data Protection Officer in transport. 6 years experience, £70k salary.
no qualifications or even a degree I’m just very passionate about what I do.

How did you get into that job?

BookishKitten · 22/10/2023 00:52

BeBopTallulah · 20/10/2023 09:32

Data protection manager for a tech company.

But, covid actually did me a huge favour. Before that I would be dropping off at breakfast club and using after school clubs. Covid really made my employer think about ways of working to the point they wrote a whole new policy to empower team members to work when and where they wanted. Covid was a boom period for us and everyone’s productivity went up so they could see something was working. They get to recruit from a bigger pool now as prospective employees don’t need to be based near an office.

Do you have any special qualifications for that job? How did you end up in that line of work? Thanks!

BookishKitten · 22/10/2023 00:56

Bowbobobo · 19/10/2023 19:35

Freelance writer of exams and learning materials for professional bodies. No holiday, sick pay, pension etc but income is way higher than £50k so it evens out. Have WfH since God was a baby.

What sort of professional bodies? How did you end up in that line of work? Thank you

MILwoes1 · 22/10/2023 01:09

26 year old chartered accountant - WFH exclusively (have done maybe 10 days in the office since first lockdown) earn £48k plus a 10-15% bonus

Icanttellyouanything · 22/10/2023 01:46

CrapGoat · 19/10/2023 00:50

Same to @Icanttellyouanything . I'm a tutor of adults freelance now. Would love to do it at university level. And I am sure it'd be less stressful than further education-some of the companies I work for/with are INCREDIBLY disorganised. I could bore you all week with it but for instance, some students I teach had a mock exam a few weeks ago, on a Tuesday. Up until the Monday, I had not seen said exam. I had no idea what was on it. I was in touch with management for weeks asking about it and kept being fobbed off. That isn't one of the worst things but I don't want to risk being recognised!

HE can be just as bad 😀
I found my current job on https://www.jobs.ac.uk/
Good luck!

Jobs | Job Search | Job Vacancies on jobs.ac.uk

Start your UK & international job search for academic jobs, research jobs, science jobs and managerial jobs in leading universities and top...

https://www.jobs.ac.uk

BeBopTallulah · 22/10/2023 07:30

@BookishKitten I worked in a bank for 22 years and moved round with it doing lots of different things, started in a call centre as my first proper job and then worked in a branch, account management, change management and then because of a project I worked on became interested in compliance. Applied internally and got a job in the team that set policy for the entire group on the run up to GDPR legislation coming in. I did a GDPR Foundation training course paid for by the bank. Three days and an exam at the end.

I took redundancy in 2020 and now work for a tech firm so a totally different sector and it’s been a steep learning curve getting to grips with the technical side of our products to then apply the legislation but I love it. My employer has also put me through my GDPR Practitioner training last year.

If it’s an area you might be interested in it must be a part of where you work now. There must be a Data Protection Officer and a team or person who has to make sure personal data is managed correctly day to day so get to know who they are and let them know it’s an area your interested in getting in to. Ask if you could go and see them for an overview of what they do. I used to do that in the bank when I wanted to move roles. Ask them if they foresee and positions coming up and what you need to do to be considered. You will have transferable skills that will help.

it’s not for everyone but I love it, my employer is excellent and I’m much happier since leaving the bank.

Best of luck.

Xenia · 22/10/2023 11:43

Data protection is a good area. I do quite a bit of it as a solicitor and even did so when the 1984 then new data protection legisltion came out ! Also I agree with the idea of getting to know something knew. I sometimes pick an area of law where no one knows anything about it as it is brand knew, learn more about it than most people - it is a good way to get into something where no one older or more experienced knows about it as it is brand new.

CyberCritical · 22/10/2023 12:16

If anyone has an interest in Data Protection then it's a growing area. I work in Information Security which intersects heavily with Data Protection and the roles are generally WFH and prevalent at the moment due to every country being in their own legislations. Looking like there will be several new releases of legislation in 2024.

Until recently GDPR was the main set of guidelines out there, with Brexit we split out to a UK GDPR, California released CCPA a few years ago and a few other states have now released or have laws in consultation for their own versions. China had PIPL, Saudi Arabia released theirs last year or the year before, Australia and Canada have their own legislations, Brazil too.

Global organisations are having to balance and align to all of these.

Questioningfolke · 22/10/2023 14:40

I also work in digital in the public sector. For senior roles salaries start at about £58k
Varied work and mostly at home.

Fraudornot · 22/10/2023 21:25

@happynewyear23 how do you get to earn that much in translation? All the jobs I see seem to be around £25k.

kasho5 · 23/10/2023 08:20

Data Analytics on 60k fully WFH

happynewyear23 · 23/10/2023 11:12

@Fraudornot Hi, I am quite experienced in Medical, Legal and Technical translation, so I literally can take up jobs from different clients. And I work roughly about 40-50hours per week (or the number of words equivalent to 40- 50hours) . Join various translation agencies, so you have more jobs and hours. Try interpretation as well. This video is quite useful if you are into interpretation. Thanks! s

BookishKitten · 23/10/2023 14:42

happynewyear23 · 23/10/2023 11:12

@Fraudornot Hi, I am quite experienced in Medical, Legal and Technical translation, so I literally can take up jobs from different clients. And I work roughly about 40-50hours per week (or the number of words equivalent to 40- 50hours) . Join various translation agencies, so you have more jobs and hours. Try interpretation as well. This video is quite useful if you are into interpretation. Thanks! s

Edited

May I ask what languages you work with in specialised translation? How did you get into specialised translation? Do you have a technical or similar background in the areas of translation you work in? Thanks!

Lattims83 · 23/10/2023 15:58

arejcenencehche3uh9f3 · 18/10/2023 16:45

I was a software developer (currently taking a break following redundancy to think about what I want to do next) and my partner is an engineer involved with compliance and safety (though he's on about 65k). Both of those aren't really careers that you can easily transfer into though.

Not entirely sure about that. I'm also a backend software engineer and I retrained to become an engineer from a marketing exec. It wasn't easy and you have to have an aptitude for it, but it is doable and career progression is pretty good.

Xenia · 23/10/2023 16:49

On new data laws they have kept coming since the 1984 Act (when I was still a trainee solicitor). We have a new UK Bill coming up https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3430 and the EU has all sorts - it is a fast moving field.

tiglit · 23/10/2023 18:05

@Xenia including the diminishing of DPOs so will be interesting to see the impact that'll have on the sector.

Xenia · 23/10/2023 18:12

That's true. More generally in relation to jobs we are moving as we have many many times since I started work in 1983 into another downward cycle, lawyers, accountants and many others being laid off https://www.reuters.com/business/deloitte-uk-cut-over-800-jobs-bloomberg-news-2023-09-13/ . If it is going to be a recessionary time then we will need insolvency experts and litigation lawyers - the kind of sectors that do well when times are bad I suppose.

Offices of Deloitte are seen in London, Britain, September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

Deloitte UK to cut over 800 jobs, source says

Deloitte is planning to cut more than 800 jobs in the United Kingdom, a source told Reuters on Wednesday.

https://www.reuters.com/business/deloitte-uk-cut-over-800-jobs-bloomberg-news-2023-09-13

BraveMaeve · 23/10/2023 21:38

Lattims83 · 23/10/2023 15:58

Not entirely sure about that. I'm also a backend software engineer and I retrained to become an engineer from a marketing exec. It wasn't easy and you have to have an aptitude for it, but it is doable and career progression is pretty good.

Edited
Show quote history

Would you mind sharing what approach you took to retraining? DH is thinking of doing this at the moment and there are so many courses out there.

Did you have to take a pay cut at first? We're assuming that will be the case for a while but there's only so low we can get by on and still pay the mortgage so perhaps this is isn't a realistic plan, I think he'd really enjoy it though!