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 think career changing at this point in life is not family friendly. You would be starting from scratch again and need to put the hours in to work your way up.

I upskilled in the career I was in and it was still hard but has meant that whilst I’m full time, I have a lot of flexibility and predominantly WFH on a high salary, with higher than average annual leave. I no longer sacrifice my career for my partners, his is not more important than mine so we both cover school runs and child related tasks. I couldn’t work in a senior role if I put his job first each time.

Become a therapist of some sort. You can earn fortunes and it's very flexible. I have a friend who trained as a hypnotherapist. She makes €100k a year full-time and works out of a space in her home.

Surely you'd want a role/career in something that you are 1) interested in and 2) good at. The idea that you expect to just start into an industry at 50k+ working flexibly when you haven't even demonstrated 1 and 2 at the very least is not a very good start...
And yes Id say most self employed roles would require some experience first. I wouldn't been giving responsibility of my account to a self employed accountant who qualified yesterday, that seems to go without saying.

A lot of industries can be flexible but it is about your specific employer as well as your own abilities and commitment to the role. I work in law. My role is very flexible but that's because I am extremely committed to it, will get the job done in the end no matter what and I do it to a high standard. It is a balancing act. And as others have said your definition of family friendly may be different to mine for instance. For me it's about being able to be available for parents evening, activities, competition, hospital appointment etc. it doesn't mean working 20 hours a week without putting any effort in or late nights as needed. And I do travel for work but then my husband picks up the slack because we don't value ones professional development other the other.

Data analyst/data engineer/analytics engineer - not too hard to get to 100k per year with a lot of flexibility on working hours (as long as you have the aptitude).

I work 4 days a week, am free to skip meetings if I need to or make up hours if called away by childcare. Took 7 years to get to 6 figures. Took about 4 years to get to 50k.

Other allied roles like data protection officer and product/delivery managers can also easily get to 50k if you have the right aptitude and are able to get onto the first rung of the career ladder.

Ditto software engineering, although you may have to be on call for incidents down that path.

I've seen some people use customer services / customer account management to make some really strategic sideways moves into more interesting and lucrative roles (e.g. into product/marketing/data roles)

I work in the NHS as a healthcare professional and earn about 32K working part time. But I was already >12 years qualified when I went on maternity leave with my eldest and came back to the same role.
For a newly qualified (Band 5) in the profession, a part time role probably wouldn't be considered when you are competing against people who all want full time jobs.
Being a bit disillusioned with the NHS in general recently I had started looking around for new jobs but realised that I'll never find anything else that pays as well as my job for the same hours, especially if I'm starting somewhere new.

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

This is your problem. Lots of careers allow more flexibility now, either early finishes or part time work, including many well paid jobs. But the assumption is you're sharing the childcare load with the children's other parent, not that you are going to constantly be second string.

Also - when you say early finishes, do you mean "stop at 3pm to collect children from school" (eg because you don't want to use childcare)? Or "be able to finish at 4.30 to be able to get home in time to collect from wraparound"? The latter is much more reasonable than the former. Trying to fit any sort of professional job into 9.30 til 2.30 sorts of hours only really works if its a 50 50 job share -you can't really sustainable commit to working 3 hours every evening after children get to bed, its just not workable, you'll be tired and none of your colleagues will be around at 9pm.

I'm in law. 4 days wfh and generally quite family friendly i.e. i go to school assemblies/sports day using my lunch or flexing into the evening but that's not every boss or firm. I've been qualified 10 years this year and there's just me & DD in the week. XH does eow. I still rely on my parents as travel/overnights are expected for conferences/client visits/certain training events but you would plan your own diary to extent. I know someone with 2 kids going into accountancy - doing exams atm.

This is a very real problem and one which feels as if it is ignored.
I think you need to work out what you want to achieve, is it more money or is it your own feeling of self worth, usefulness and mental health. The decisions you make might be influenced by the motivation. If you stay at home too long you risk damaging yourself esteem and life satisfaction. If you take a job without flexibility you risk stress and not feeling you are doing anything right.
You could think about volunteering in third sector, advice giving role possibly. Training is usually quite structured and you are well placed to apply for paid roles. Often also local which means short commute which increases flexibility. Pay not brilliant so this is a suggestion if your main motivation is yourself rather than money.

Ime no not really. Ive never known anyone go through the accounting or tax training contracts part time. You have to be able to commit to the college schedule and hours can be longer in busy periods.

Also getting an accountancy training contract is very competitive at the moment. Post covid and with AI since they have really cut junior roles.

Generally speaking its much more likely you can ask for part time as an experienced senior professional in your existing field than as a trainee in a new one.

I have this kind of role in Compliance. I earn 50k for a 3.5 day week from home and loads of flexibility.

I was a teacher previously, then had 5 years off when my kids were small. I had no qualifications in Compliance but took a very basic role in a small company. It took me 5 years of doing all the grunt work noone else wanted, showing up to everything and generally proving myself to get what I wanted. It's highly unlikely you will be able to walk in to what you want without a few years of doing the same.

We would all go for an 85k flexible job if it didn’t require qualifications and experience.

Not true. There are companies that offer a lot of flexibility irrespective of the industry sector I think. I am in Banking and although I raised my two as a single working mother (no family help or help from the father at all) when things were far less flexible (they are 28 and 24 now), I see family friendly flexibility as the norm now.

"It took me 5 years of doing all the grunt work noone else wanted, showing up to everything and generally proving myself to get what I wanted. It's highly unlikely you will be able to walk in to what you want without a few years of doing the same."

Agree with this. My thinking though is that if OP is thinking of doing a uni course then she is already setting herself up for 3 years of limited/no earning power so may as well just do 3 years of grunt work instead.

I think the key is where does OP want to be in 5/10/15 years time. Sure, anything around 30k may seem not worth it within the next year, but does she want to be in the same position she currently is in in 5 years time or would she rather have a career at that point earning her desired 50k+?

But yeah, highly unlikely she will swan into a 50k/yr (FTE) part time, flexible job in a new career, especially after a career break/change.

It may just be that OP needs more time for the kids to grow up and be more independent before reentering the job market, which is fair enough if she doesn't need the money. But she will still feel that the entry salary for most jobs will be paltry in comparison to her husband's (at least to begin with) and would need to swallow that pill eventually.

OP do you have good A-levels & degree from a highly ranked uni? Because most of the things being suggested on here (law, accountancy, financial advisor roles) are typically competitive graduate roles. If you haven't done a degree already there are apprentice roles but they are highly sought after and are fought over by the absolutely best candidates. There are also far more of these jobs available around London and while a day or two wfh is common, you couldn't do it living 300 miles away.

On behalf of (most) lawyers….May I, on behalf of a lot of us say, please don’t. There are far easier and more enjoyable ways of earning a living. I’d be hard pressed to find you a lawyer who would do it again with what they now know

But she will still feel that the entry salary for most jobs will be paltry in comparison to her husband's (at least to begin with) and would need to swallow that pill eventually.

This, always this

Generally you would need a decent degree as a minimum, and what the PP isn’t telling you is the time it takes to get to that salary (SCS1 I suspect, 12-15 years is not unreasonable from entry and fast track schemes don’t advance you much on those timescales unless you are truly exceptional ) especially if you are not an already qualified technical expert.

But If you are asking for a career long game, then it could work. Entry is typically as an HEO, maybe SEO but that salary would be less than the average for a FT teacher. Some departments, or department functions are more family friendly- Westminster I would say is significantly less so, as a senior you have significant responsibility to Ministers and days can be long with early starts and late finishes. It is also stressful!

You would be better off looking at an arms length body I would suggest, who deliver locally and have more regional presence. There are many in Gvt: Homes England, HMRC (regionally, can be very family friendly) Network Rail, Environment Agency. Your PR background could help you in a comms type role, I would maybe look to start there.

I would just warn though OP, that it is the most competitive I’ve ever seen it at the mo, hundreds applying for each role. You will be up against young hungry graduates with experience to boot.

As you don’t seem to necessarily need the money, have you considered getting some modern recent experience under your belt, eg in trustee or NEDs roles for small local charities? You could really demonstrate a difference there and help you springboard into evidencing the competency base required for CS.

We don't consider the university of our graduate trainee recruits, only the degree classification.

The regions are less competitive for TCs because more aspiring trainees are desperate to work in London for the Big 4.

Im a civil servant - i work around 22hrs a week for around £50k (grade 6). 2 days in the office per week, two days from home, one day off completely. Im based in London but our Dept does have offices in other parts of the UK and I'd be able to switch there if I wanted to. You could look for CS comms / marketing roles - not quite PR but might get you close.

Edit to add - my two wfh days, I finish at 3pm for school pick up and so the DC only go to after school club on my office days. Works really well for us.

There absolutely are. Dh is a company director in a trade. It’s very niche, only a few companies in the UK do similar, but it’s largely in the restaurant industry or selling bespoke or off the shelf products he’s designed to home cooks. He works roughly 8:30-3, but has to be on email and in touch with employees and clients from first thing in the morning until evening, but it’s more like keeping his eye on emails and taking calls while driving dc to sports. He works from home except one day a week he is on site leaving after the school run and gets home about 7pm. He earns probably £70k ish a year, but it’s as a director, so not really a set salary every month so varies year to year.

I am not working at the moment, due to long term illness, but when I go back I aim to be able to earn about £50k PT doing freelance scientific copy editing. I’m self employed, so set my own hours, choose my own clients. Some people easily make £100k FT but I have no desire to work that much. When I was younger and building my career, I absolutely did the 200 mile London commute and it was well worth it back then. I’m also a co-director in dh’s company so I draw a £2k salary for that in addition to any earnings of my own.

The difference is neither of us was ever a SAHP. We both have been building careers since our mid 20s, so have 20 years experience and a strong network. We have very specific skills. I have a PhD. Plus we both have business experience. And we’ve planned work around family life rather than the other way around. It is totally possible. But you can’t just pop into it.

Bookeeper?

Optician? That wouldn't include the working from home part but I've always thought it would be a nice interesting job where you could pick your hours and live anywhere.

Teaching can be very well paid if you get off the bottom rung. Most teachers I work with tend to do that first then have the children after so the mat leave doesn't affect the career too much but in your case you have the children already so that's an advantage. Plus I find a lot of teachers who have been promoted are done so on the basis of being a great teacher which has no bearing on a lot of the skillsets required to be a middle/senior leader. If you've got experience with processes, communication, are tech savvy and can do a bit with data you could fly in education, the trick being first getting through training etc and off the bottom rung and by then your kids may be of an age where you don't need as family friendly a job.

Wow

Interpreting. I work freelance and charge between £50-60 ph. Work the hours I choose with a mix of face to face and online bookings.

I think AI has reduced the number of positions for graduate accountants. Law is not flexible in the early stages and in some areas the hours are simply awful - I am thinking of litigation but it's generally not family friendly. Maybe the civil service as a solicitor might be okay. I am a lawyer and I do have a lot of flexibility but it has taken me decades to get there and I worked like a dog for most of those years.