To ask for your help figuring out how I can get some income in fast

[Moneyproblemz]

Legal options only please 🫠
I'm really panicking. I've been a freelancer for two decades now but my industry is being destroyed 😭 I'm a translator, and before you suggest interpreting - don't bother. My languages don't have heavy interpreting demand in the UK.
Like many translators, I've been watching my profession slowly die for a while now. But this week my biggest client said they were shutting down.
I'm absolutely screwed. I only have two months of outgoings I can cover.
I live in a city which is helpful, but I just don't know what the hell to do. I know I need to think of a proper long term career pivot, but right now all I can feel is panic. I need to find something quickly, and I've applied for some jobs already, but I just feel like who the hell is going to hire me as a 40-something with zero experience of anything other than my own industry. I'm assuming anything to do with hospitality and retail they are just going to prefer someone 20 years younger than me.

I'm just asking on here in case anyone has a few off-piste ideas I might not have thought of other than "desperately trawl through Indeed". Like I said, I do have some ideas for a bigger picture plan, but right now I need an immediate solution.

Thanks all

They are not advertising at the moment.

Unfortunately I've just bought a house 🤦‍♀️ Which makes the whole situation even worse, because just as I'm shelling out for all these outgoings, thats when my client pulls the plug. At any other time I'd be willing to move for work, I've moved country loads in my life.

Temping for royal mail. I loved it

Well they were a week ago…

I do AI training work via a few different companies, and they are often looking for bilingual workers. This is one that's being advertised at the moment for fluent French/English speakers (this is a referral link, btw, but feel free to search for Mercor if you'd rather not click a random link): https://t.mercor.com/e5NiD

There are some hoops to jump through with interviews, competency tests etc, but they are legit and the pay can be pretty good if you can get selected for projects.

What did you like about it? I'll look into this!

I'll check it out, thank you 🙏

My former neighbour (she’s now relocated abroad funnily enough) used to do something called “teacher hosting”. Essentially these French people, usually teens but sometimes adults, would stay with her for a fortnight at a time and do a mix of “table top teaching” to learn English, and sight-seeing with her. A day would look like, breakfast, a couple of hours of formal-ish language, go out to a local attraction and lunch, then another couple of language hours. With a young person it might be something simple like baking a cake which would involve counting, measuring etc in English as part of it.

She got paid well for it - it was initially through an agency who take a cut of the fee, but I know some of her clients were siblings from the same family who she cut out the agency with and dealt direct with the parents. She used to do language tutoring with mainly adults too.

You are underestimating your skills. Look for admin roles they pay a bit more than retail.
My niece moved to Leeds she sent a lot of cv’s online, she had no luck with them so she walked around the industrial estates introducing herself and handing out her CV, one of the companies weren’t actively looking for staff, they were impressed by her approach and offered her a decent salary for an admin role.

Private tutoring

Gardeners in the SE charge £35 an hour. Thats more than cleaners.
Dog walkers are increasingly in demand.

Multilingual jobs can be hard to come by, but when they do pop up, they're often quite desperate. A few years ago, I got a bilingual French-English sales job with no sales experience. They said I was the only person they interviewed who actually spoke both languages when tested (and I'm sure your French as a translator is much better than mine!)

There's a real shortage of language teachers in the UK. It may be worth applying to the assistant positions you've seen, even without experience. If you're interested in retraining, there are fairly generous government grants available while you train as a language teacher, but I'm not sure you'd be able to start this until next summer.

Ive pulled in 1k per month from letting my spare room on airbnb. I met some lovely people.

What about large Haulage companies ? They normally have a large amount of non English speaking drivers where we are and often advice for people with particular languages?

Language /assistant in private schools.

Or to pivot use those writing skills to work freelance

Traffic surveys - you sit in a car with another person and count cars on and off. Easy work and when you are ‘off’ you could proof read for University Students.

I work in shop floor management so can't answer for the head office side of the business (which is way harder to get a decent job at)

It's fairly straightforward to get up to the first level of retail management from minimum wage of you are flexible & take jobs as they come up. You will likely be doing the job as a 'team leader' on just above minimum wage to show you can do it.

I'll be blunt it's not well paid but it's not ridiculous in terms of long hours or stress as long as you are happy dealing with a wide variety of people.

As a manager you will likely have a very diverse team - young people 16-17 still at school, students, people having a career change/redundancy/ part time around childcare but otherwise capable but also managing a significant number of employees who have mild learning disabilities, neurodiversity etc that struggled in education. Many with mental health & other disabilities that missed out on education/career opportunities. The people management skills take up a larger proportion of my time than dealing directly with customers.

I'm a bit wary of people I interview for shop floor staff that want to 'use their skills' from other careers. I would rather people who want to learn to do the job on offer. (NHS staff & teachers/teaching assistants are a red flag)

I've employed several people on shop floor who have been made redundant from decent careers who have them managed to get jobs in head office roles using their previous skills - not on the same level but a better step on the ladder.

A lot of head office roles are advertised internally only so you have a head start if you are already employed at the company.

People knock retail careers but I think that's an unfair judgement

Agency work. There are many out there. Sign up for several and see the work pour in.

Mitie is a good one.

Language teacher in a secondary school. There is a huge shortage of French and German teachers at the moment.

I think you get money for training as it is a shortage subject and my local (Russell Group) university still has places for the PGCE starting in a couple of weeks.

Brilliant. I bet the OP hadn't thought of that! Well done.

In the immediate term - matched betting and selling stuff on marketplace and vinted. And in the short term - cleaning, delivery driving, literally any job you can find. Longer term - retraining, I know someone who has just begun this programme: https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/hmrc-tax-specialist-programme/ which is well paid, and applications open next month. Good luck!

Tutoring?

Tutoring GCSE and A Level?

Search TES for online/remote tutoring jobs. There are lots of online school jobs now - usually you have to be a qualified teacher, but there are also quite a lot of tutoring opportunities and you don’t necessarily have to be a qualified teacher for those.

Tutor one to one for gcse languages or run a kids French club. Say 5-6 kids £10 a pop, 3-4 times a week or weekends could bring you in £250 a week.

This is really interesting. When they say “sensitive topics” is this unpleasant sex stuff or say left wing / right wing political debates?