To think that there are no well paid family friendly careers?

[Careerhelppp]

I’m currently a SAHM to young children. Whilst my children are still young, I’d like to start preparing to return to the workplace in a few years time.

I previously worked in PR in London and have now moved over 300 miles away! The majority of PR is in London so it’s not really feasible for me to return to this. The area I was in was also the opposite of family friendly so it just wouldn’t have worked anyway.

DH is a high earner and there is no need for me to return to work. However I’ve started feeling like I’m just letting all of my potential and independence fade away and that I need to have a plan about getting a career back. The difficult part is that DH’s career completely dominates everything. He works away a lot and at short notice so I’d have to work around this. This is non-negotiable - DH couldn’t not do this and if he moved to a different role, we’d be taking a huge pay cut (probably over double what I’d ever realistically earn).

I’ve thought about law (love the academic side but I don’t think the hours would be flexible enough), teaching (not well paid enough to make it worthwhile for us), accounting, being a financial advisor, even being a therapist.

Ideally I’d like a job that is fairly flexible (eg. Allows me to finish earlier and pick back up in the evening), includes some WFH and is has a salary of over £50,000 if full time. Perhaps something where you could become self employed?

Any ideas?! Totally prepared to do another degree if needed and the cost of retraining isn’t an issue.

Council jobs are very flexible. 10-12 and 2-4 are core hours and then you just make up the rest of the hours. I work from home 90% of the month in Planning Department

You can walk into train driving if you pass the assessment (although you start on half the salary for about a year while training I think..)

OP FGS there are loads of comms and comms-adjacent roles around the country that can utilise your PR experience and where there is flexibility - particularly in Universities, charities and third sector. You just have to look.

TBH if you had to work you wouldn't be having this quandry or this level of navel gazing. As they say necessity is the mother of invention.

I gotta be honest, I get really tired of hearing about middle-to-upper class women with wealthy husbands who go on about how they kinda maybe want to work but then that work needs to pay a lot and also needs to be interesting and satisfying and flexible and needs to be able to accommodate their children's needs as husband is too important and and and... and so they give up at the first hurdle because they are looking for a job that is never going to deliver everything they want.

Yeah it is swings and roundabouts. I have a very easy going, flexible role now which is fab but it is boring. I don’t want to give it up for the time being at the flexibility works brilliants but I am just going through the motions rather than getting satisfaction out of it

Teaching has made a lot of sense for me. Having every school holiday off with the kids is great. If my kids do an extra curricula club I can pick them up after it as I have a very short commute. I was able to be part time for years. However, you are in a very privileged position and see things from a different viewpoint to me if you see £30k as not worth it. How can £1000s per month more income not count? Mind blowing.

I went from a band 6 clinical NHS job to working for a private company in a consulting type of role in the area I specialised in. Now on £75k, work from home, can be very flexible and get a trip to a big city paid for every month. You just have to keep looking and be a bit lucky!

I don't think you are going to walk into a job that fits your requirements without utilising your previous experience.

You could probably get a comms job in the civil service, but if anything other than doing comms for tv and film is boring to you then I am not sure it is for you. I am a former civil servant so this is based on experience. The £75k civil service jobs mentioned upthread are senior and very stressful. You would need years of experience to land one of those.

If your expertise is PR, I’d suggest media team of central government department, regional government (e.g. Greater Manchester Combined Authority etc), local government, membership organisation or large charity.

However, would add that you seem to be making all the sacrifices to accommodate your DP’s career. Wise to consider you could end up a lone parent or carer to your DP. Likewise, so could your DP.

Have you considered becoming a teaching assistant? Definitely not highly paid (although it should be!) but you would only be working when your children are at school and you would have holidays off, so no need to pay for any childcare. If you worked at the same school your children attend, you would be there for sports days etc. Plus, it would give you the opportunity to see what teaching is really like - you could complete your teacher training when your children are older.

I'm currently jobhunting and as what I used to do was fairly niche, am stuck between waiting for a similar role to come along or to try and apply for more junior roles where my skills might transfer, which isn't easy at 44 as you're competing against younger people with more specific experience and employers assume you won't take a paycut for it. (Would be up for retraining if I could work out what I actually would realisticallt want to retrain into!) I'm finding anything near the salary level I used to be at is insanely specific about the experience and qualifications they want, often to the point where it's effectively three fairly different roles in one - good luck with that I guess.

What I am seeing are lots of PR and comms roles where I am in the north-west, so you absolutely could do it outwith London if you wanted to.

Exactly this!! And I honestly do not moan about it to anyone in real life because I know so many of the mums in my life would chop their arm of to earn that much with that much flexibility as most of them are sacrificing one or the other but I was raised ambitious and to always be chasing something and it’s hard to turn that off!

You mention training contracts in both law and accountancy, but I couldn’t think of 2 less family friendly jobs.

I trained with the Big 4 and my training contract days were brutal. Also the amount of hours I had to put in to make it to partner level was insane. It’s only once you reach that level that your time is your own and it can be very family friendly.

Same with law. DH is a lawyer and it is notoriously un-family friendly. Plenty of firms are still in the dark ages with regards to family leave etc. and so many lawyers don’t return after mat leave or leave shortly after they’ve returned.

Also, I hate to say it, but your education is probably not good enough to get training contracts.

If I were you I’d stick to the field you’re already in and progress your career in that field as far as possible. Only once you are very senior do you get maximum flexibility with an excellent salary.

I'd update your cv and look at what your transferable skills are. I'd then see if you could meet with a careers advisor or recruitment. I'd also do some job hunting and look at what certain roles actually involve.

As a sahm with a dh that works away you will always be the default parent, so sickness etc will always mean you are the one to take time off. I'd really consider if it is worth it to you at this time and I don't say that to you to discourage you. Careers people have mentioned such as law or accounting require different skills. They aren't easy degrees to study for by any means and doing so alongside raising children can be done if you are motivated and have some support but you have to have an interest in them besides the money you will eventually earn.

I do earn well part time and work around my family but I have a dh who is supportive and has a flexible job. My role itself isn't flexible but I went self employed after having my youngest so I could run my work diary and work around dh.

For you I think a sideways move would be a good idea and I'd look at roles in that kind of area. You could also consider content creating about your previous roles, how you got into them, explaining work experience etc. A friend of mine used to work in pr, she now does a lot of planning/organising for high net individuals.

Im a lawyer in the civil service in Scotland - circa 80k full time and it is very family friendly in terms of flexi time, ability to do school pick up and make hours up later but if you are not already a qualified lawyer you have a long and expensive road ahead of you, particularly in England where you would need to pay uni fees. You would be looking at 5 years of full time study and a 2 year traineeship before you'd be be qualified. Unless you are really interested in and committed to a legal career, Id say it's not worth it

Dentistry ticks all those boxes

If you want £50k + and flexibility, I think you need to stick with PR. You mention that you don’t know where to start finding interesting opportunities locally (they will exist) but working out where to start will be much easier than doing another degree, and as others have said, you just won’t get good pay and flex from day 1 in an entry level role in another career.

Sorry to piggy back on this @Shithotlawyer. I am in the same position as the OP and have just finished a SEN TA course with a view to getting a job in a school, hopefully working with special educational needs or in a special educational school. My background is an OT (in adult social care) and my hope is I can pivot back to OT at some point with the SEN TA experience in my back pocket. Do you have any further insight in to the career pathways that may open up OT's in light of the reforms? Thank you

Are you really a bot? Or perhaps extremely naive? I’m qualified in one of the sectors you keep throwing out there and it took significant academic achievement (in the area) and then years of working full time time to approach the salary you are talking about. I appreciate that you are looking for ideas, but start with skills and aptitude, then perhaps an element of future-proofing (insofar as that’s possible) before the money.

Are there any major employers/ corporations where you are?

A route I’ve seen people who left London take for a career change in their 30s has been joining a major employer at an accessible level and getting promotions and related payrises every 1-2 years.

IME the bigger the employer, the more flexible and family friendly in terms of policies and paid/ unpaid leave, as plenty of cover for every role when dealing with sick children etc.

If I’d have to look for a flexible well paid career now, I’d go for self employed beauty therapist (injectables) or hair. I know people who do that and they make great money and arrange their time as they need.

I earn 6 figures in accounting but less flexible now I got promoted. It has been flexible moving from manager to partner over 15 years part time with 2dc.

Trainee accountant roles are full time as it take 3 years to become what we call time qualified. A trainee would get about £30k.

I suggest if you want to go down this route self funding AAT and then getting a PT role in industry. But it wouldn't pay as well as you want.

A shit-hot tutor (in the sense of a proven track record of getting a student to a particular end point).

OP you say you're willing to retrain, but is the salary you're after what you are wanting to work up to, or what you want to be on after retraining? There are many valuable qualifications but graduates in any field (whether academic or vocational) usually need a good few years at a lower rate before increasing, as most qualifications are a starting point to get into a profession. With the exception of finance, I can't think of anyone I know who walked into that salary level (or equivalent) fresh out of uni.
The flexibility you're seeking is usually only likely if very senior/niche or freelance, both of which require you to have a proven track record. With time not being on your side for that I really think you need to look at options related to your PR experience.

But the hours during training are not family-friendly.

A part-time GP - and before you start laughing at my suggestion, there is a 50-year old student in medicine year 3 in my dnieces' med school and there is a msn article about a newly qualified UK doctor, aged 72. They take an awful lot of mature first-timers into med schools now, if you have forgotten all the chemistry and physics, there is a pre-med school year on the Widening Access to Medicine Programme. You would love it!

No, no, no, if she already has a degree, there is a one year MA Conversion course she can do, there is an option onlie - is it one year? Then a bar or solicitor exam and Jonathan Sumption is her uncle?