The classic 'why don't you retrain?' question on MN

[theresalwaysguineapigcurry]

I've just read the 4999th 'why don't you retrain?' suggestion on mumsnet in the last week and I want to scream.
I am a single parent, trying to escape mostly minimum wage admin jobs. I have a degree and I'm relatively skilled. I've never had a 'career' as much as I've tried, I have applied for many graduate jobs, schemes, companies with progression opportunities. I think part of this is down to wanting to stay in the public sector and third sector. The highest level I've got is around 27K and then after that there's no more opportunities.
I do have limitations in that I'm not interested in working with numbers or HR. I like people, I like working in roles where you deal directly with people. I couldn't work in procurement or accounts or payroll.
So I decided to retrain and was lucky enough to be accepted onto a scheme which will allow me to become qualified in around two years. You also get paid a basic wage.
Whilst I am grateful this job has involved taking a £300 a month pay cut, having to commute 35 miles each day, having to find childcare which goes on past six to cope with the commute, doing my coursework on evenings and weekends, having to find overnight childcare for a week for training, giving up my NHS holiday allowance and only getting five days off between now and Christmas to cover all school holidays and also risking failing at it and then being unemployed.
So whilst I don't doubt that it will pay off and I pray I can make it work, it has taken every ounce of my courage and I still have frequent moments of thinking what the hell have I done. I simply could not have done it without support from my parents and their dad (one day a week). Lots of people don't have this, especially single mums.
So what I'm saying is, when people trot out the 'why don't you retrain?' line, please some idea of what that actually means and the work involved, also what these magical retraining opportunities are. I see 'part time accountancy' or 'open university' are often suggested without little insight about whether that suits the person's skills or whether they can afford the fees. If a mum is struggling on MW trying to make ends meet, it's very unlikely she could shell out for tuition fees!
Oh yes and the whole 'should have established a career before kids'. Well if we all had known that our relationships would fall apart, mortgage rates would rocket and lurpak would cost £15 then we'd all be playing the lottery more frequently!

No one says its really easy....

They say "these are jobs where"

• training is widely available often with no fees
• the salary is good even when training with the potential to be high after time
• these jobs have possibility of flexible hours/part time etc that works around other responsibilities

SO

If you can suck up the really hard bit to get there, its a great way to improve your life

Solicitors, accountants etc the pay isn't great now. If it's money you're after do the research before you go to university, get the experience and hopefully you'll move on to self employed if you have the nous.

For flexibility and money train in construction. Plumber, electrician, gas engineer, gardener.

First three trades yes but hard to make money as a gardener.

With trades you also need to think about the impact on your body. You can e.g. do the dreaded accountancy at a desk.

Plus I think the early starts are hard with DC in childcare and all the sexism you encounter must be no picnic.

I retrained at 38/39 (teaching) and had a baby around the same time. It was very, very hard work and I had the full support of my DH, some support from my parents and had savings. Plus just the one child.

It did succeed though and it was the right thing to do. My DSis, who didn't retrain, is now stuck in minimum wage work despite her degree and professional qualification.

Well done to you OP!

A quick glance at recruitment agency websites (who are hardly going to be underselling what you can earn) suggests this is unlikely countrywide.

It frustrates me as well, not least because from what I've seen on another 5000 posts having qualifications doesn't mean you'll get a good job related to them anyway.

I don't have any beyond some really bad A-level results 20 years ago.

I do have a good job and salary but through lots of small promotions, sideways moves and a very squiggly progression line. At no point during my career would I have been able to take a lump of time off to retrain, ironically I could afford it now I'm earning more because I've been able to save.

OP if you are looking for does that involve working with people, admin skills and have progression opportunities take a look at Governance, Risk & Compliance. There are lots of speciality sectors - Environmental and Social Governance, Quality, Information Security, IT Service Delivery, Financial...... but they cross over and use the same skills. If you can understand a set of requirements, make relationships with people across the whole organization so you can gather information and evidence, engage with people to communicate the standards in a way they understand, identify improvements, keep track of changes and legibly document them into processes........

I started on the phones in a call centre, moved through the levels of team leader/manager/call centre manager, then IT Service Delivery management, then GRC management, then added in CyberSecurity. Now I'm Director CyberSecurity for a large global company. No qualifications anywhere in that journey, just lots of time googling, skimming through books and finding the right people to listen to and involve in projects.

@theresalwaysguineapigcurry I’m not quite sure what you’re saying.

As I mentioned above there is a Mature Study and Retraining board on MN (under Education) specifically set up, quite recently, to help anyone asking the questions Am I too old? or How can I do this?

The purpose of the board is to share knowledge, advice and encouragement on finding, funding, organising and getting through study and re-training as a mature person.

Are you saying it’s a pointless exercise and no one should bother to try?

(It’s actually a real shame your own thread hasn’t been placed there.)

Left a professional career 5 years ago aged 37 to do a full time 2 year course to retrain. Had no kids, cheap rent and a highly supportive partner.
Was still really tough due to fees, unpaid placements (which weren’t conducive to part time working) and the whole going back to uni 20 years later vibe.
Fair play to anyone with kids etc etc who pulls it off!

I agree OP. I could never afford to stop work and go to uni again. I am struggling even with the generous amount of overtime I am offered.

However, I have learnt ms office to advanced level free online, along with numerous software packages, and multiple soft skills. The amount of free courses out there is like a treasure trove! I have also gained several additional qualifications whilst working ft, running a family and volunteering- it’s just being disciplined and putting the phone down now and again.

These have opened up new career opportunities.

There is also now more funding available than ever to support learning. People often don’t realise it’s there or that they qualify for it. If you want to retrain- always check if you are entitled.

All the best in your new field OP.

The public sector is wider than the NHS, the civil service have many departments spread around the country now with entry level roles often around £27k and plenty of training on offer. To me retraining doesn't mean going back to formal education, but changing roles to one in which supports development also. Procurement isn't actually much to do with numbers, but a few years in the public sector where they pay for and give you time to do MCIPs and you can laugh your way to the private sector or can stay in the public sector for a decent wage as they're short of them.

There are government funded bootcamps which some might benefit from, I don't recall people saying retraining is easy either- but realistically if you are in a low paid job with no chance of progression and you want more you're going to have to do something to gain skills or experience to earn more in a job you enjoy more.

It's like saying they don't have the right to have a preference in terms of their career.

You can’t have everything though can you? If you want money and flexibility something often has to give.

I take your point about random training suggestions, but it cuts both ways - sometimes people are incredibly unrealistic. I work in a creative job, but spend a lot of time with finance staff. I am not great with figures but pretty sure I could succeed in accountancy if I worked at it and it was the best option for me and my family. Not sure I could pull off coding.

Even if people aren’t moving from low wages it’s the same principle for higher wages (middle earners) leaving a job you hate and taking the plunge to earn less money when you have a mortgage etc. it takes a lot of guts to leave a well paid job to re training hoping you will once again in the future earn good money.

It’s never simple or easy and anyone who take that’s jump to retrain should be praised.

It's tough isn't it? I've tried to get a new qualifications as well, also was a lone parent. The first time I had to give up a Master's because of my DD's mental health, then I've been trying to pivot my business but that got derailed by my DF dying, my DM's care needs and Covid, and then I started another Master's and was diagnosed with cancer, possibly partly as a result of the stress of doing all of the above! I have started the second Master's again, but still have health issues, so I'm not convinced I will manage to finish it. I am so knackered that I would happily retire if I could, but there's no way financially I can do that and I do like learning.

Everyone has options and they aren't always easy, often you have to make sacrifices like you have. BUT you have made it work, so it is doable.

Also retraining could mean anything, it doesn't have to be a 2 year long degree or course. It could be upskilling on Microsoft Office online, it could be developing your softer skills to be able to move into management and so on.

Also there are government funds for further/ higher education that some single mums are eligible for

I hear you, single parent for a long time and it took me until my late 30s to get the opportunity to retrain, before that was stuck in minimum wage jobs in an area that wasn’t suitable for me but didn’t have the things I needed to switch careers. I’d see people saying well upskill yourself in your spare time and I tried (and actually that was what started the change) but of course most of my time was taken up with single parenting, work and trying not to go under with bad MH (in part cause by being in shitty low paid stressful work that did not let me develop the things I am genuine good at and passionate about).

Its not as easy as many people make out.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/find-a-skills-bootcamp

The words that stuck out to me there were that you didn't want to work in the likes of HR or numbers and you like people, that isn't a barrier to earning more, that is a choice. The truth is if the lucrative careers were all easy and fun we'd all be in them. Too often people are told to "do what they love", which you should, to a degree, but you should also make calculated moves as to what earns more too. Some people seem to need permission to accept that. Yes there are barriers like childcare and funding, but not choosing lucrative careers because you "like people" is a choice, and it's one a lot of women make, there is a (sad) reason as to why so many traditionally female career paths are low paid.

You missed "go into tech". The turnover of developers is staggering because there are so many who are useless and you do need a degree of brain.

I agree OP. I’m in an industry that I like, but it is going through some huge changes and no one is sure what the outcome will be. It’s very unsettling.

When I was 16, I wanted to train in beauty therapy. Parents wouldn’t support it and pushed me to do A-levels. I’m not that academically clever and it was a disaster. Started at a more vocational college at 17, was told by admissions staff that I’d need to do hairdressing alongside beauty, which I’d have been terrible at.

I was out of work a few years ago (redundancy) and DH said we could look into getting me a shop if I wanted to do “nails and that” 🙄🤣. I told him it was lovely of him but I needed to be qualified. It’s all I’ve ever been interested in but I just never had the opportunity.

I'm now mid-40s and in our town there are hundreds of beauty/nail salons. It’s not realistic. There is a fairly well-known make up artist school not too far away and I’ve thought of doing one of their intensive courses. Trouble is, I can’t leave what (for now) is a stable job to maybe see if I could make a living at it. I couldn’t even do weddings etc as a sideline as I work shifts and EOW.

I did do OU when it was more reasonably priced and got a Diploma but I’m just not academically capable of a degree. I do have a skill set from my previous jobs but nothing that translates well to another industry and nothing that means I could WFH.

There was another thread about disliking working and someone on there mentioned bullshit jobs, which is a book. The theory being we live in a world where bullshit jobs are paid well but could not exist tomorrow and the world would still turn, but perversely real jobs that matter like cleaning, child minding, bin collection, teaching etc etc are undervalued and looked down on. You sound like you want to do a real job.

I’ve retrained and I’ve moved from public sector to private, I had given enough of myself. I donate to charity now because I feel bad I don’t do as much to help others, but helping others wasn’t helping myself. I could always go back I suppose if they start valuing employees in my previous career again.

It is really hard op but also we need women and especially mothers to find routes into higher paying roles and industries. We need representation. Sadly we are made to work for it harder than we should do, which isn’t right or fair, so we have to be resilient and supportive of ourselves and each other. Not everyone can do something different for lots of different reasons, in which case maybe we should be fighting for fair wages for all too.

Well if someone is looking for advice around how to get to a better financial position, the simple answer is to retrain to a higher-paying qualification. That's borne out by statistics.

Simple, not easy.

What other advice are people looking for? Marry rich? Win the lottery?

In terms of "qualify as what?", that's not really a fair question because it depends on the person and their talents!

To the PPs who talk about public sector/third sector being a choice, and a choice to earn less - that can really depend on where in the country you live. Where I am, public sector and NHS are the biggest employers. The private industry around here is things like warehouse work, small scale factories etc. There are no fancy corporations to aspire to work for! Obviously the people who own the small local businesses are likely to be making better money but you really have to have a specific personality type to be able to set up your own business, as well as being able to deal with the risk of it going under. Not everyone is in a position to do it.

@Coffeetree I think the point OP is making is this 'advice' is usually on threads where the OP ISN'T looking for advice on how to retrain.

When a poster talks about work life being hard/stuck in a job they hate etc, there's often a response of 'just retrain'
A bit like the 'well why did you have a child with him' and 'just move to a cheaper area'.

@Curledupwithabook I grew up somewhere like that, we had to move away early 20s as we couldn't have the careers we wanted in our home town. We've had to move around a fair bit for our careers.

If someone starts a thread like that though what responses are they hoping for? Ah it'll magically get better, maybe you'll win the lottery then you can leave work?

Honestly the thing that most annoys me about those kind of posts is that the underlying assumption is that the solution to many professions (particularly public sector and caring roles) being chronically underfunded/paid is that people should retrain and shouldn’t expect to be reasonably compensated for their work. It’s a real blind spot for many people that clearly not everyone can do that as there will always be a finite number of jobs that offer high wages. It’s obviously fine some jobs pay more than others but it’s not fine that people can’t earn enough in many jobs to pay for rent, utilities & food.