to ask for career change ideas?

[spirit20]

I’m looking for some advice re career change and hoping some of you lovely people could give me some ideas in what I could aim for. I know the work forum might seem more suitable, but I feel there's a wider variety of people here so might get a wider variety of responses.

I’m currently 36 and work as a secondary school teacher in South London. I want to leave teaching and I’m looking for some ideas of careers I could enter.

· Have reasonably good earning potential and allow me to eventually get back to at least what I currently earn (approx 60k). I know I’m not going to walk into a job with the same level of earnings, but I’d like to have the option to get back there over the medium term.

· Allow for some element of flexibility and remote work.

· Allow me to start training while continuing to work as a teacher over the next 1-2 years (so online/part-time etc). I’ll need this time to save anyway to be able to take a pay cut after switching.

Skills I have that might be somewhat relevant to non-teaching world:

· Fluent in two European languages (with an intermediate standard of three more).
· Leadership: currently manage a large team.
· Responsibility for initial teacher training and beginner teachers at my school, so significant experience in training/coaching etc along with working with external bodies such as universities.

I’m considering either accounting (have some basic prior work experience working in industry roles in this) or learning & development (I’ve heard many teachers go into this). However, it seems that a load of jobs and specialisms exist out there that I’ve never even heard of, so am wondering if there are other areas out there that I’m missing?

What subject do you teach now? What is your degree?

I teach languages now (German and French) - my degree is in those subjects, and also have a diploma in management accounting from around 11 years ago if that would be of any help.

Have you considered training to be a teacher of accounting qualifications? It's totally different from being a school teacher. Firms like BPP would employ you.

Career change to accounting will get you a good salary eventually but not £60k for a long time. You're going to struggle to get a training contract with a good firm at 36.

It's not a fun job to work your way up in. I like being a specialist in a big firm but I had years of slogging away at reports and spreadsheets.

You could start a qualification in your own time. It would look good on your CV and demonstrate commitment.

I'm not a management accountant but it seems like your background would lend itself well to that and it would be to easier to get a starter job in a company.

The ability to coach and train is actually more useful in practice. I need people who can manage people and skill them up.

@ZenNudist Thanks for this! That's definitely one option I'm considering at the moment, restart the CIMA exams for 1-2 years while saving some money in my current job, and then hopefully using my language skills to get an entry-level Accounts Payable/Receivable etc. job somewhere where I can work my way up.

My suggestion is to speak to a registered Careers Adviser, you can get free support from the National Careers Service too! There's a lot to consider, not just transferable skills. Good luck!

@greenjojocat Thanks for the advice. I've used those resources, but often the official services tend to provide quite generic information rather than specific information related to my circumstances. For example, with regards to accounting, I already know what qualifications are needed and average salary etc. but really value hearing from people who work in the industry what the actual prospects are for a 40 year old ex teacher etc.

You could do a part time masters conversion course in psychology (remote) and the apply for doctoral training to become an ed psych.

A qualified and registered careers practitioner will be able to give you guidance specific to your circumstances. They are available free through the NCS or you can look on the Career Development Institute website for a list of registered practitioners and find someone local.

Have you considered law?
Part-time postgrad conversion course to start with?
My cousin works for the CPS as a second career and earns similar salary.

I went from HE to instructional design and I love it. The other thing would be an LMS administrator. I also did educational data analysis. I've done all 3 and it's a pretty employable set of skills.

I did all the training while working full time. And almost if all of the courses were free apart from the MicroMasters on EdX from Maryland International Campus.

I now work remotely for an Educational NGO based in France. Our team is based worldwide.

@Wallywobbles This sounds really interesting, could I ask how you set about getting into instructional design and educational data analysis. Where did you look for jobs and would you have any recommendations for courses to start with?

This is the best course I've ever done
novoed.com/resources/learning-experience-design-course
and change my life. It's free and the next cohort starts in October.

There are some brilliant forums, slack groups and discord channels and groups on LinkedIn.

Look at job posts on LinkedIn for IDs and ELearning developers and you'll see various bits of software come up all the time. You'll need to get to grips with these. Most popular are Articulate Rise and Storyline. Camtasia is also good and easier than the Adobe equivalent.

Lots of ID starter stuff on LinkedIn Learning. Just start building up your knowledge by doing short courses and work through it.

This web site has a lot of the theory that you will need,
elearningindustry.com/cookie-preferences

Dévlin Peck, Tim Slade, Robin Sargent are people to follow. They have YouTube channels and other things. Also regular posters on LinkedIn.

The course I did on educational data analysis is the worst designed course Ive ever done. But it gives you 2 certificates. learn2analyse.eu/proj/l2a-mooc/

@Wallywobbles That's excellent, thank you!

Have you thought of tutoring during the holidays so you can add to your financial buffer when you take a pay cut?