To ask what other job/career could I move into without slashing my pay?

[DrizzleHair]

After a few ideas please.
I'm currently an operational researcher - it's a gov role but basically means mathematical modelling / analysis. I'm a senior manager grade and earn ~60k pro rata.

I enjoy my job and I'm bloody good at it. Skills include: good with numbers (obviously), shit hot at Excel/vba, quick at picking up new software and I can do some programming. I'm also good at managing stakeholders and giving presentations - I can explain technical points to non technical audiences.

I'm also so hard working snd happy to take direction from managers, flexible with my approach etc. I think I work quite quickly too.

I'm afree a change of career. I don't know what into as my qualifications don't obviously fit my job - phd in computational scientific modelling, undergrad in science. I don't have any OR qualifications or decent lengthy programming experience.

My main reason for looking for a new career is commuting - I recently.moved out of London so my commute is over 2 hrs each way. I only need to be in the office 2 days a week so it's bearable, but I don't want to be commuting to London for the next 40 years. There are no civil service jobs where I now live, though it is a biggish city with plenty of other jobs I assume.

I thought about retraining as a science teacher but I'd be taking a 50%+ pay cut which I'm not sure our finances can cope with. Other local financial analyst type jobs all seem to require ACCA etc, and I don't think I can be arsed to spend years studying!

Amy thoughts on anything obvious I'm missing?

My one other thought was retraining as a physician's assistant - a new NHS role which is a bit like a doctor's scientific side kick. I always wanted to be a doctor and basically messed up my a levels due to boys/fun, so missed my chance there.

I'm nearing 40 with one preschooler and another on the way any week, so I potentially have maternity leave to do some soul searching / research, but from last time I suspect it'll all pass in a milky sleep deprived haze.

Any career / recruitment experts I'd really appreciate your advice please!

Apologies for phone typos...hope the gist is clear

Starting salary for teaching wouldn't be £30k so you would have to take more than 50% pay cut. Sorry no helpful ideas!

How about consulting for the advisory arms of the big 4 accountancy firms? Generally have office all over the place. Data skills always in demand?

Or bespoke consulting firm?

Your issue is, that you earn far too much

However, if you have moved out of London, a 2hr commute away, then surely your overall cost of living has been considerably reduced ( and would be far less again without the train fair x 2 a week), so maybe you could afford to earn a lot less, and that would widen the scope ?

Not sure where you are, but how about Risk management in financial services? All your modelling skills would be very useful, a good firm should see your potential. Your skills would be needed for stress testing, credit risk analysis etc, £60k would be a middle to senior manager depending on the firm.

What's a physicians assistant going to make? I'm a bit meh about the role. More quid per hour than a doctor but needs supervision. Not all trusts will have them.

Could you become a quantitative analyst?

Data analysis for local NHS Trust or council. You wouldn't be earning the same amount but you'd receive a decent pay grade (higher than the average wage for sure). Sometimes quality of life needs to take precedence.

My friend did similar stuff and started his own consultancy looking at individual projects for big companies. It took a while, but he's significantly dwarfing your £60k now!!

My DH is a data analyst for a London university - Data Analyst, Business Analyst, MIS etc for big companies command salary similar to yours and experience of modelling is very in demand. My DH earns about £55k and could earn significantly more in the private sector. Try a specialist recruitment consultant for some advice. Good luck!

Do you want to leave the civil service, or do you just feel you will need to in order to lose the commute?

I have found a civil service OR job in the most unlikely of places - if you want to stay CS, make sure you have your CS Jobs filters set to your local area and turn on email alerts! You never know what might pop up

My H is looking to recruit people with your types of skills into data science/ data analyst roles in online recruitment stuff.

I would also suggest interim/consultancy work. Organisations are always looking for someone with analytical skills to do ad hoc projects. It's very flexible, well paid work. You could probably earn £60k for a 3 day week once you are set up with a couple of clients. I recommend particularly looking at the charity sector. Even larger charities can struggle to employ top staff with your skills, so often keen to pay for consultants. After initial meetings, much of the work can be done from home.

If you were willing to continue the commute then I would have said risk modelling for the likes of Lloyd's of London, a lot of using excel / bespoke software to analyse data from software such as RMS and AIR.

If you want to skip London then I second the suggestion for business analyst. Depending on the sector in can be a very interesting and well paid job, and as its more project based, it stops boredom setting in.

Physicians assistant roles are on £28-32k, so half your salary.

Met Office?

Some very large non-life insurance companies are based in the provinces, e.g. Admiral in Cardiff, and they need a lot of very high calibre number crunching, though it doesn't attract the mega-bucks available from the quants in City banking.

Academia seems to be the obvious choice - middle management/senior lecturer would get you a salary in that ballpark (with maybe a bit of a cut), but the flexibility and good holidays are a godsend for people with children.

Don't go into academia for the "good holidays". I don't know any academics in my university who actually take their 35 days, except when they want to earmark undisturbed time for research. Evening and weekend working is also common. I haven't had a weekend off since early January.

Sorry, 30 days, not 35.

Have you looked at graduate routes in to medicine?

PA isn't really new, it has been around for about 20 years but there are very few as most nurses do additional training. In the US where the PA role started nurses do not do a lot of things they do here, such as stitches.

Go into software and computing. Data analysis, big data, data science etc command big money now. If you are a contractor you can earn aboutique £600 a day. Also computing cloud commodity trading.

Or go into financial trading. Big bucks.

Data science / big data. Don't know where you are based but there is work in plenty of places other than London and there should be no need for a pay cut (unless you are looking st PT). Something around your current salary should be easily achievable (especially with a PhD). It sounds as if you have exactly the skill set needed. There are quite a few agencies that specialise in data science roles. If you want an edge, there are short courses that give you

Hit enter too soon - crash courses that give you all the buzz words e.g. Science to Data Science. As Cookie said contracting rates are decent.

www.s2ds.org