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.

I was also a single parent and have worked in local government all my life. The flexibility is great with many hybrid rules although lower down the scale pay isn't great. But I've managed to pay off a mortgage and put my daughter through a private school (with a sizable discount from a scholarship I should add) so I guess it is all relative.

I would say post COVID the workplace is definitely more family friendly and more workplaces are offering flexible contracts and modern working ways. I also feel that with generations moving up the managerial positions are starting to see more modern viewpoints thankfully. You just need to find a good working environment and a good team. I work 4 days a week and have a 6 year old and 19 months old. I work one day from home and 3 days in office. My workplace have an on site nursery that I salary sacrifice to.

A big salary without putting the hours in is an almost impossible ask- the OP said she was happy to go back to university and could afford it- so what is your problem exactly?

Even if you retrain in a new industry you are going to have to start at the bottom and work you way up to get the kind of flexibility you want. It unlikely you will take precedence over people who have been doing the job for a while.
If you did do another degree are you prepared to take on any job as extra income while studying?

Educational psychology is a seven year commitment. It’s a conversion MSC then a three year doctorate which barely any universities offer. Then two years in a county council before you can offer private work. I have a psychology and a psychology MSC. I have 20 years in education and mental health. I have small children and I cannot work out how to complete the doctoral training whilst still caring for them. I am also a qualified teacher and I cannot work out how to care for my children whilst teaching. Just so you know. Lots of people go for psychology or teaching but it’s not easy and it doesn’t really fit around family. I would do the doctorate but where I am I would need to travel two hours to get the the university. So that’s not manageable.

I retrained as a therapist, after returning from maternity leave at a third sector organisation to find that my department had been completely disbanded! I'd been self employed before, it doesn't suit everyone but I like it. I now train, supervise and see clients and earn a reasonable amount, although many of my peers earn far more, as I am crap at marketing myself and not very income motivated really as long as I have enough for me. When my son was small I never missed a school run, or school event. I can work whenever I want to, and with a high hourly rate (£70, but some charge £150) I can work 2-3 hours a day and still do all the household chores and parenting. Downside is the unpredictability.

In house comms at a large firm, as others have said. Wherever your nearest city is will have some decent sized employers and you’d be likely to WFH a few days a week but still work on interesting stuff, depending upon the sector. You might even be lucky enough to find fully remote (as I have) which enables me to work in a highly paid sector (financial services) but be fully flexible. The kids that are still young enough to need childcare use a bit of breakfast club and a bit of afterschool, but this means their school day is 8-4 instead of 7-6 which is the minimum it’d be if I had to commute every day.

I was in a similar position about 3-4 years ago, had been out of the workforce for the guts of a decade, aside from the odd contract here and there. Needed to get back to work and went through similar debates around retraining etc. Situation different to yours in that I needed to be earning well quickly, but even without that pressure I think I’d have found it pretty demoralising to slog through many years of training and then early career again - with even less chance of flexibility at this stage as others have noted - rather than just getting back into a similar field I was in before (marketing), even if in a less interesting sector (FS now as opposed to travel industry). I’m definitely not doing the role I dreamed of early in my career but the benefits massively outweigh the bit of boredom. I remind my eye rolling kids constantly that no one ever died of boredom 😂

If the employer is large enough, once you’re in and have proven yourself, you can move around a bit or carve a niche to make more interesting work for yourself. Sorry to repeat what so many others have said but the instantly flexible, highly paid, interesting, rewarding and fulfilling job really doesn’t exist without a few years of pain/dullness/long hours etc first.

Because she's looking at probably 13 - 15 years of study / placements in a competitive field before she becomes a fully qualified consultant psychiatrist (and thats assuming she has strong science A-Levels to begin with, which a background in PR work suggests maybe not).

She's looking for something that is flexible and family-friendly, that works around her husband's last minute travel plans.

I know a number of psychiatrists that do have quite a bit of flexibility in that they write Court reports on a private basis, and can manage their own diary in that respect, but they are only qualified to write those reports and be expert-witnesses because of the expertise they have gained through the years of graft in the NHS beforehand. Her family would be grown and flown the nest long before she reached that point.

Even a vet doesn't do 15 years before practising- you can decide to study on MA, PHD but you don't have to . A degree is 3 years , then professional qualification, maybe 5-6 years as you originally said- but you need9 years of placements- really that sounds very strange.

@Laurmolonlabe
A-levels
Medicine degree
Foundation training
Psychiatry core training, then higher training

Its years and years of work.

Alevels, that's well in the past for the OP- try answering the questions rather than just running out your frustrations. According to the NHS website it typically takes 6 years to qualify.

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).

It sounds like your employer would need to work around your DH's career.

There are definitely roles where you can finish earlier and pick up the work in the evening (law, corporate roles, etc) but it sounds like you need a lot more flexibility than that?

Find someone to build you a website and set up a PR agency (self employed).

Advertise your specialism on social media. Play up to the fact that you are a SAHM - it has social value - and the reduced impact of remote working - it has env value.

Cold call/email local companies - research them first see if you can find work/bids they want to apply for or should. Say how you can help them.

Keep your prices keen but don't go cheap, though you could provide offers.

Sooner than you think you'll have work.

You don't need to be employed to earn a living from your current specialism.

My DH earns £250,000. If I were to get a £30,000 per year job, I’d be taking home less than £2k but we’d probably have to get a nanny and it just doesn’t stack up. We don’t need the extra money enough to make it worthwhile.

I’m sorry, but my education is perfectly fine to get a TC! I got AAA at a level and have. 2:1 from a top 10 university?! I know of two solicitors with ‘lower” academics than myself who are working for regional firms…

Training contracts are very hard to get. Like extremely hard.

Thousands apply for very few positions. Law firms are taking on less and less trainees and that’s only going to get worse as more and more firms use AI.

DH is a partner and all of their trainees have 3 or 4 A*’s and firsts. Largely out of Oxford or Cambridge.

DH doesn’t have those academics himself, but the landscape has significantly changed since he was applying for graduate roles.

I’m not putting down your academics, but you need to be realistic. You will be up against thousands of graduates with significantly better academics than you.

How young are your children, op? Are they both at school? Do you have family etc around? Do you live near good transport links?

Children are primary and nursery ages. Unfortunately we don’t have any family around to help with childcare - our families are still in London.

There are semi ok transport links. I could go to London perhaps 1 day per week.

Thanks for all of the suggestions - I’m going to reply properly once the children are in bed!

I don’t plan on actually working for another 5 years or so. So I really don’t mind a long, academic training process. In fact, I’d quite like to start something like this.

In regards to the idea of training to be a therapist, does anybody know if you can become self employed right from the start? Or do you typically have to do NHS work first? It is psychotherapy that interests me the most here.

I do also like the idea of becoming a financial advisor too. I look after our household finances and it’s something I really enjoy!

I so wish I’d studied speech therapy rather than the course I actually did do .
speech therapy is very flexible and family friendly.

With that level of income (how secure is it?) your DH should be supporting you to undertake any role you like regardless of whether it covers the cost of childcare or not (which is a very sexist notion).

The economy is shrinking. A forecast of 160k fewer jobs over the next 12 months. You're highly unlikely to walk into a £50k job as a newly qualified anything in 5 years time (when you’ll be even longer out of the workforce) but a £30k role can lead to a £35k role which can lead to a £40k role etc. The longer you are out of the game the harder it will be to hit that £30k role.

I’ve done lots of different roles in my time but Psychotherapist and IFA are worlds apart in terms of skill set and opportunity, so it feels like you don’t actually know what you do and don’t enjoy doing (and IFA is a lot more complex than managing the household budget. You need an in-depth understanding of pensions and insurances and tax and fraud legislation). Psychotherapy is really emotionally draining, it requires a lot of resilience and you have to undergo therapy yourself as part of the training. Many NHS roles are now temp funded by charities so there isn’t secure employment. It probably takes about 10 years to become established securely as a private therapist. Lots are having to use agents like Better Help to get work as people can’t easily afford £100 an hour - my friend used it alongside other routes and was getting something like £35 an hour through BH.

The world could be very very different in 5 years time. If Reform come into power <shudder> they are proposing to outlaw WFH. Most companies want attendance of 40-60% now for new staff so your 1 day a week is unlikely to work.

Clinical psychology is roughly about 7-8 years minimum. You need degree and doctorate and most people do a masters and have work experience in between. It’s competitive. You don’t have to work with NHS after but it’s strongly advised to build your skills within a team and supervision. Also I would never recommend someone who was offering private input without a decent CV so it might not be as easy to get patients as you think. Also most patients want evening slots so unless you have great reputation, middle of school day slots may not be taken up - I only offer school time slots and take off holidays but I’ve build a solid rep and have a lengthy waitlist.

I have worked 45 years as a speech and language therapist. It is an extremely rewarding career - I have no regrets. The hours were no more family friendly than any other 9 to 5 type job. When you are dealing with people who have appointments you cannot suddenly cancel when your child sneezes and you need to pick them up from daycare. I coped with the children because DH was a teacher - and taught in the same building as they attended. MIL also came in useful.

My children now have tiny children. One is a lawyer and one is an accountant. The accountant chose that career after doing her Masters. It was great that you can choose the pace of your learning. She did it in 3 years because she was single. I think you need to have a contract while taking exams.

The lawyer had a brutal early career progression. Working long hours so less than minimum wage if you divide the salary by the number of hours worked. She now takes home six figures but could not do it without help from both grannies- even the one that lives 1000 km away.

Both of them know that they need family around to cope with sickness, inservice days and holidays.

OP given your DH take home salary it is like that you are going to be the one to have to drop responsibilities when the children are off school. That can be hard with young families. I would have thought that there would be roles out there that may not be bringing in mega bucks but still using your skills. I’m thinking of things like working in PR for a charity.

Psychotherapy is rarely offered by the NHS, so they rarely have jobs available to offer it. In theory people tend to set up their own private practice early on for that reason, but you have to consider that a) very few people who would want psychotherapy have the money to spend on psychotherapy and b) many more people are turning to AI chatbots as an alternative. I know quite a few people who studied it but none who have made it into a career recently, I know a few who are older and more established who have practices but it's very much a part time thing around other work, and they have to offer evenings/weekends as the client group who can afford their services tend to expect convenience/to fit around their own working hours.

Clinical psychology is an established NHS role and has a much broader application. As has been mentioned though the training posts are extremely limited. Many people who start that route, ie by doing psychology degrees/conversion courses have to eventually switch into an alternative career if they can't get access to the doctorate. I know you said you have good grades but you have to appreciate that there are others who have the same grades but are 21 with no major responsibilities, the willingness to work 60 hours a week and the flexibility to move across the country for the right post.

If I had a husband earning £250,000 I’d 100% pack up work and NEVER go back!🤣