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.

It will depend on the firm and how part time you mean? Also which department. An audit training contract will usually require you to attend client sites, whereas outsourcing/accountancy/tax won't so much. Flexibility would be easier with the latter departments.

Also, the department or specialism will influence what kind of skills you need and what your role looks like. E.g. tax is law adjacent so a career in tax would mean becoming conversant with tax law. You could get to do technical/legal research type activities and write advisory reports etc. (I mention this because you said you'd considered law.) https://www.tax.org.uk/careers-in-tax

To offer your services to the public on a self-employed basis you would need a certain level of experience, qualification and potentially a practising certificate (unless you just mean bookkeeping). Lots of people become sole practitioners but it can be more stressful having the full weight on you and without anyone to turn to for a second opinion.

Marketing, sales, database management, public sector administration - not all will pay you £50k from the off but there’s probably a route to it.
Up-skill in AI as it will affect how many jobs are done and if you can talk about it with confidence it may help in interviews.

I mean, if there were an abundance of high paid jobs with flexibility around dc that you could walk into with no training, don't you think other people would have taken them? I'm not honestly sure you're being realistic.

I think you both need to look at what you consider "well paid" (I'm not sure a teaching wage is beneath you if you don't have any particular professional qualifications) and what you consider "family friendly" (because I imagine you'll need to use childcare).

Everyone has to juggle workload, travel and career moves around family. I’m a single parent and have made sure I have robust childcare in place so I can work full time. As your DH clearly isn’t going to do any childcare, you just need to get childcare sorted so you can work. It sounds like money isn’t an issue, so you could possibly get a nanny.

if you want a job that offers flexibility and working from home, just use that in your search criteria. Look on job boards such as Flexa which specialises in helping people find the companies that offer the benefits they’re looking for (working from home, flexible working, extended mat leave, whatever).

Once you find the companies you’d consider working for, then you can decide which roles you could apply for. But a word of advice, if you’re going to label any PR job outside of London as ‘dull’ it might take you a while to find something. Good luck OP, the job market is extremely tough at the moment.

Speech therapy is a very difficult job to become well paid in now

Would it need to be part time from the get go?

I think a lot more would open up for you if you could work full time for the first couple of years. With wraparound now available at most schools, is that out of the question? Or even a nanny for a couple of years?

If you're not interested in full time, I think self employment is your best bet - but depends on what you're interested in and what there's a market for around you

Where we are (London) - lots of services people will pay for, decluttering/organising, therapy, gardening, batch cooking, and much of it pays very well

I retrained as a lawyer when my children were small. I now earn a good six figure salary. It’s absolutely possible to have flexibility and to do a certain amount of wfh.

So you want family friendly AND exciting and dynamic? Should have said…. Because the obvious answer is to do dull PR given that’s what you’ve experience in and what is available locally.

Why not teaching though? Secondary would be able to achieve £50k fairly easily.

I would advise against becoming a therapist. It is a tough expensive training, not that flexible (because clients need to be seen at the same time every week), and quite hard to make a high wage because of the risk of burn out if you see too many clients. It’s a wonderful job but doesn’t meet your criteria.

Civil Service seems like a good shout but you would have to work your way up.

I’m in law but consultancy rather than private practice. It’s been very good and flexible when my kids were small and pays in accordance with your requirements

I’m also surprised there is no consultancy in PR - it’s a sector I’d have thought was perfect to be a consultant in.

Why did you agree to this tedious provincial life of poverty in the first place?

Have you looked at local govt? Obviously pay is low but often very flexible and wfh. There’s lots of roles where previous PR skills may be relevant and opportunities to progress and undertake qualifications. If you are in an area going through local government reorganisation then I’m seeing lots of roles advertised.

I'm an accountant in the civil service. Earn £65k, 2 days in the office, 3 from home. For the most part, I dictate my hours, and my departments flexi runs between 7am and 7pm.

But I didn't walk into that. Started as an EO on £24k 9 years ago. It took me 5 years to get to the region of £50k. The next promotion (which I'm hoping to start looking at in 18 - 24 months), would be a salary of circa £76k.

You mentioned financial adviser. I am one and think it's a very family friendly option if you're self employed. Will take some time to obtain the required qualifications but it's common to earn while you learn, so building up soft skills at the same time as technical knowledge.

You could also look at paraplanning, which is the technical/admin side supporting financial advice. As you'd not need to be client-facing then it's even more flexible to work around family hours.

There is loads of consultancy / freelance work in PR. There are Facebook pages etc dedicated to it.

I went freelance after having kids and it’s now evolved into me having my own agency. I work the hours I want and am very present for my kids.

if you don’t want to go down that route you’ll need to retrain and suck up the lower salary for a while

Oh wow. Can I ask the route you took? Did you have to work insane hours at the start?

I’m a comms director in the Midlands. There is plenty of PR and marketing in the regions. In-house roles in all sorts of organisations, public and private sectors. Agencies.

I’ve had working mums and part-time roles in teams I’ve run. Everyone works hybrid these days. I’ve never needed to work in London since my first job in the 90s - and I’ve never found it dull. If you’ve been doing luxury retail PR in London then yeah, financial services, construction, or public sector may not compete. But you wouldn’t be starting at entry level, so what matters most right now for you?

I’m saying look at the big employers in your area and connect with their comms people on LinkedIn. Look up agencies - they might take you on freelance to give them reach in your region, or they might have account manager vacancies.

Ah thank you! Is it vital to build up experience before going self employed as a FA?

I just think of it differently I guess if teaching was something you really wanted to do.

Go freelance doing PR

I worked in PR and was freelance when dc were little just to keep my hand in with 3 clients (local council, big energy company specific campaign and local theatre). I now work in nhs comms on £56k. I wfh 3 days a week and can work completely flexibly around dc. PR is probably one of the more flexible fields out there Ime.

If the government are serious about following through on their SEN reforms we are about to need a lot more educational psychologists. It can be flexible and they're often also doing private work. You'd need to start the retraining path now. Masters conversion course in psychology to get GBR from the British psychological society then specialist training post that.

I work in cybersecurity, 99.9% from home with a couple of days a year in-person meetings/travel, I set my own hours as long as I get the job done and can attend any important meetings. Sometimes I have to work late or weekends if there’s an emergency or an important deadline but I can always figure that out around school pick up and drop off times or appointments. Tech and tech adjacent roles are generally pretty flexible.

Thanks for your input.

I did film and TV. I don’t think I’d even know where to start with smaller, local businesses.