To think I can career change and find a role earning approx £80k a year?

[Changinglanesonceagain]

I have 25 years experience in a professional role (comms).

I’m looking for a change, but want a job that pays £80k in a couple of years.

I know that’s a lot of money, but I’m very experienced and think that even in a new industry I’d bring a lot of experience with me (particularly in soft skills).

Does anyone know any high paying sectors where my experience would attract that kind of wage?

What qualifications do you have e.g. uni/a-levels/post-grad etc.

What sort of role are you looking for? Comms could lend itself to other areas e.g. marketing, PR, HR.

Getting into tech (although it’s currently experiencing a bit of a low period) or financial services would probably increase your earning potential.

Maybe tricky to get 80k if you want to change jobs and your first thought is ‘I know, I’ll give the bare minimum effort and post in AIBU’

@FluffyUnicorn84 Postgrad level. Masters in social science- 2:1 from Russell group university.

Did graduate training scheme on leaving uni.

🙄

@Work2live PR/ HR would appeal to me - lots of skills are transferable, but am guessing the wages vary widely depending on sector?

We have someone in our company who works in comms and earns more than that in her comms role. Large multinational food/drink manufacturer.

She is projects based and just left our project where she managed the global comms stategy and change management messaging of a new global IT software tool to move to her next project which is more commercial and customer facing.

She came up through the business and has no degree, but a wealth of experience, business knowledge and people behaviours gained over years (common in our company).

It all depends on your skill set what opportunities are available to you, "comms" is not really enough information.

I work for a bank (not in a finance or technical role) in a big city, and juniors can earn 30k - 40k in non finance roles.

I’d presume if you’re in a senior Comms role within a large organisation / city, 80k should be possible?

You sound very capable to me OP, good qualifications and plenty of experience

If you are comfortable sharing, would you be able to give more detail on your current role - eg are you at management level? What is your current salary?

Are other posters missing the point or is it me?

OP doesn't want a comms job, as I read it?

Yes as a general rule tech, FS etc would probably give you bigger earning potential in the long run. I moved from ecommerce to tech and the difference in earning potential is enormous.

With a lot of comms experience I think you could make the transition into HR or PR quite easily, such as an internal comms/internal engagement role, or a hybrid PR/comms role.

I'm in a mid-level comms role in higher education on around 60k, plenty of people above me on 80k. If you wanted to stay in comms I'd look to finance, tech or industry roles, might be worth having a chat with a recruiter to see what kind of skills they'd be looking for and what roles are out there.

I did a very lucky but unintentional pivot in 2020 from comms to tech role. Had no experience in technology but within a year was promoted and am now on over £90k.

I'm not sure you could plan it though, it was a strange sequence of events and people who got me here.

Your starting point would help. What is your current role and industry? Where are you (London salaries are higher than regional ones generally)

I know someone who taught themselves to code webapps and switched careers. Not on £80k yet, but could be in a couple of years by changing jobs.

Comms might lead to project / change management, but if you've been doing a consistent job for 10 years then that jump might be a hard sell to recruiters.

Any opportunities in your current employer?

Apologies, I reread OP’s post properly this time instead of skimming (I’m working from home haha). You’re right, please ignore my last post😅

Why do you want to change from comms, may I ask? Surely it would be more efficient to change industry (for that change feeling) while maintaining your current trajectory rather than starting again?

Like, I see PR as part of comms, really. See also marketing, people and culture (though not 'hard' HR, you really need a qual in that to reach that level of salary), agency work, crisis management, etc etc etc.

Comms to project management isn't unheard of and in tech/finance, then you'd be looking at £80K pretty easily with your background. I'm in comms and have ex colleagues who are now - for example - freelancer media trainers and bring in decent wages through corporate contacts (not unheard of to be charging £3k for a day of media training three C-suite execs for example). I think comms lends itself to change management which, in corporates, tends to sit in HR, but if you have internal comms experience then moving into employee engagement is simple. Comms is such a wide discipline (which is why I love it!) so have a think about the bits you enjoy the most and then divert from there.

@LaviniasBigBloomers its a good point. I’d consider changing industries.

I’m London based ( which is why £80k is desirable!). I’m on similar amount in charity sector. Management level.

I’m basically a bit bored and looking for a new challenge. There isn’t much opportunity for me to climb further, so have hit the ceiling.

I’m looking at other sectors as much for growth of career as higher salary, but at my age (late 40’s) starting a new career from scratch ( whilst paying the mortgage) isn’t going to fly.

I like the idea of tech industry.

@MidLifeResurgence74 good idea. Media training is something I could do well.

It could be worthwhile trying to transition into a tech company in a similar role to what you’re doing now. Money is good and flexibility is generally very good too.

Do it for a couple of years or so to build up your understanding of the tech industry, then maybe explore more of a consultancy role. Someone I know moved from FS comms to become a PR/comms consultant in the tech industry and she has more work than she can do (especially as she has a great network)!

I've fairly recently changed career. I was on £45k in my previous role and have managed to secure the same salary in my new industry.

I had loads of transferrable skills but the biggy, was that I met my employer and impressed them, so next time they had a role, they got in contact. When I'd tried to apply for these roles in a job advert I got nowhere.

Since moving industry I've met lots of people who tried to do it, and almost all took a significant pay cut to do it. I keep getting told how rare a like for like salary move is without retraining, and even with it.

If it's hard at my salary level, I can only imagine it getting harder further up.

In which case, I think comms in tech would be a great move. You can check it out properly from the inside with your current skills and see if you like it before committing to a retrain or anything like that. A lot of the tech comms roles I see have a fair bit of PR in there too, so opportunity to develop. But I think if salary is the goal (and obviously you can't drop to starting level if you have a life and stuff!) then transferring industry is the way to go.

I’m slightly behind you in comms years but plan to move into chief of staff / strategy roles eventually. I’m in finance and there’s huge opportunity that goes hand in hand with being in a big global business.

What do comms people do?

What about the NHS? Senior comms / comms director roles are an 8d, so would get you the money you're after and would be a new sector so would give you some interest?