Okay what shall I upskill in?

[hekissedmybottom]

Hi, I made bad choices and now I'm 40 and faffed about a lot and have a year to upskill. I have time, not money.

Learn to code?
Join home office?
Become a youth worker and work my way up?
Do the N+ and A+ in IT?

which path would you take to get yourself the chance of a higher earning career if you had a year off work to do it and perhaps £200 a month max to train?

Watching with interest as in similar position. What do you like doing?

Do you like dogs? If so, I'd book myself on to a dog grooming course. In the city where I live, the groomers have waiting lists that are months long!

Codings, easy to learn online and there are plenty of free/cheap courses, there's a skills shortage in many areas and the pay is generally reasonable to good

You would need to decide what you wanted to do though as, for example, the coding languages a data scientist uses may be different to those a front end dev uses etc

This is what I did a couple of years ago (I was 37) I was on a 20k job doing admin management. I'm currently on 50k and I will be making a move soon which I am hoping will take me to 60k so it's been well worth it financially

Do y

We need some clues such as do you like working indoors or outdoors, can you work unsocial hours, what have you done so far, are you creative or happy to work within rigid professional boundaries etc

Do a NEEBOSH course in health and safety.

I just hate admin!! I've worked in admin most of my life so kind of wasted my time. I like being hands on. I like working with people but I am a single parent and need something that isn't poverty wages.

I'd love to work with domestic abuse survivors. I also very much like IT and think I will do the A+ and N+ in reality but wondering if any other ideas came about.

hehe. No I hate dogs. I love cats though. x

Catsitter?

If you like IT then definitely go into that, lots of jobs and decent salaries.

I was in the same position and am doing a painting and decorating course.
It’ll never make me rich but it’s steady work I can pick a choose to fit around d childcare.
£1600 for the course.

Are you DIY capable? Could you upskill in a trade like plumbing, electricity or plastering? Something people always want and complain about not being able to get hold of. Every trade I know has work coming out of their ears and spends their time trying to reduce their income to avoid going into VAT territory because they all hate admin. You hate admin too but at least presumably you can do it, so you can manage the quote, invoice, tax return element of it all.

Thank you that's a good idea, but no I'm not.
I think the IT thing is the way to go and I will do that. It's the future after all.

I love the health and safety idea though I need to find out which one will qualify me to be an inspector and how much that could cost, as that would be very fun.

Those are entry level IT skills so for people looking for IT Helpdesk or Deskside engineer roles. Not really high earning.

Better money in coding or cybersecurity.

Ooh, a trade would be a good option. They earn really well.
This is a bit random, but in my bathroom we have a Saniflo (macerator) toilet. The thing is the bane of my life, but that's by the by. There is a woeful lack of Saniflo engineers, to come fix them when things invariably go wrong. It's £180 per visit, even if it's just 5 minutes to unblock the thing. It isn't particularly difficult work and most plumbers don't want to do it.
If you live in a city - and aren't particularly squeamish - it might be a good shout.

If you look on charity.job.uk there are lots of vacancies for DV support/advisor. As with any sector you can work your way up.

You won't be a higher earner as a youth worker.

I'm always a bit skeptical of coding as a way to improve earning unless you have a real talent for it - junior developers don't earn that well and the courses available won't teach you what you need to know to become a senior developer, you learn that by experience and being self-taught.

I think the trades suggestion is a really good one though.

Thank you. can you recommend anything specific in coding per chance?

Also, is there opportunity for progression with those two IT ones?

There is but not necessarily quickly. I started on an IT Helpdesk 25 years ago as a young graduate. I progressed through team lead, manager, project manager route and then into solutioning but it's a big global company so lots of scope for progression.

Coding wise it really depends what you want to go in to. Python or Java are usually seen as entry level coding languages. But not really my area of expertise.

Don't learn to code unless you have a real interest in it. You say you'd like to work with domestic abuse survivors so it sounds like you've answered your own question. I wouldn't expect the money to be good but perahps that's ok?

I've lived with not a lot of money my entire life and £30K to me is a brilliant wage, but I live in a very cheap part of the country. I can be sensible with money and currently live on less than 2K/month.

So I have low expectations and can still do my self-employed work outside of my main job.

So yes, I have many interests and a varied work history but heavy with admin which I hate. Kind of did a number on myself there.

You don’t stay a junior for very long at all though. It is definitely well paid. You need to be reasonably good but that goes for any job. You would also have to be a good decorator to make money doing that.

A lot of companies are really keen to employ more women. Not because they’re super woke but because it’s well known that you get better quality code from more diverse teams.

There are government funded skills bootcamps that will aim to get you ready for a job as a software engineer in 12-16 weeks - Google digital skills bootcamps.
I have recently tried (and failed) at doing this but you sound in a much better position than me to give it a go so why not try it, they are free!
If you have no prior experience of coding then there are lots of free beginner courses available, so try some of those first to see if you have the aptitude for it.
I tried to do the bootcamp at the same time as juggling a busy stressful job + looking after my kids and i just couldn't do it - the course moves fast and I didn't have time to do any extra practicing / reading and I found the assignments more and more difficult each week. If you have plenty of time to dedicate to it then it should be much more doable.

If you like IT and you want to earn money then learn to code. The most successful dev I know was entirely self taught. It's definitely an industry where a provable skill set tends to be valued over formal qualifications.