Late forties new career needed

[Smallgeranium]

I’m in my late forties and have never had a career. I have two degrees- one in English, the other in Archives. It’s very hard to get an archivist post outside of London. I’ve worked as an HLTA a for a number of years, I’ve tutored English, written and taught online courses in family history and reading old handwriting. I love my current job, but the lack of decent pay is wearing. I feel I have skills but no direction! I love teaching, dealing with large quantities of information, managing difficult children, anything to do with reading and writing. Any ideas?

Wine. Look at the WSET. You can do your studies alongside work - get the levels 2 & 3 out of the way, then buckle up for the diploma. Lots of teaching & writing opportunities & if you are capable of handling large amounts of info you’re in for a treat!

Not much child wrangling in the wine trade. Though I agree it would be an absorbing occupation.

Are there no other public facing jobs in art galleries? Beyond archives and family history?

Or could you not build up a portfolio career writing for arts journals?

TBH you probably need some dedicated careers advice from experts.

I don't have personal experience to share but academic editing in English for foreign language authors seems to be a relatively well paid gig. Not sure how you would get into this though.

Have you considered roles in university libraries? Take a look on jobs.ac.uk if you haven't already done so.

social media, marketing, content writing for websites etc.

just a few ideas off the top of my head:
Museum education officer (won’t help with the pay issue though)
oral history
something in genealogy - you could offer a personalised ‘who do you think you are’ style investigation into family history?
agree that specialised journalism/content (for arts, archives, history, education journals) might be interesting
publishing maybe?

Why not teaching? Seems obvious bearing in mind what you say you like doing

🙇🏼‍♀️ Why didn’t I think of that? It does seem obvious!

Is there any reason why a teaching qualification wouldn’t suit, OP?

(I don’t actually gave a clue how it intersects with your HLTA qualification.)

I’ve looked into teaching really carefully, but can’t figure out a way of training for it without a year out and getting into debt- paid for training seems to be rare round where I live at the moment. I can’t afford to do that as I have a teen who is about to go to university herself. I’m also surrounded by teachers who keep telling me not to do it! But thank you for all your thoughtful responses so far.

They are rolling out an increasing number of teacher training apprenticeships wherein you get paid to train for QTS without the student debt - maybe worth keeping an eye out.
Other options:

• learning and development


• behaviour specialist / SEN TA


• project management


• copy writing

How about offering a research service covering a group of archives near you?

Set up your own business offering courses on the topics you love?

University support services also.

Speech and language therapy?

I was a TA. I did a CELTA. I now teach ESOL. The hourly rate is ok, and if you’re in a good area for it you will get a ft contract.

Train to be a teacher - PGCE in further education is funded £26k.