42 yo, re-entering workplace, looking for good money and work/life balance!!

[WoolyMammoth55]

...Am I kidding myself? :)

Seriously, I'd appreciate any supportive advice about where to start.

Nutshell: I was a very academic youngster, went from grammar to Cambridge and got a first in English Lit.
Then went to film school for a 2-year diploma, wanted to change the world with creativity (oh so naive).
Mum died soon after I graduated film school, so took on caring responsibility for younger siblings - did temping and childcare instead of anything exciting.
Once younger sibling was independent I re-booted film stuff, lots of unpaid fun projects, got an agent, went hard after a career in film for 5 years.
It was going well until I suffered appalling maternity discrimination when pregnant and after birth of DS1. Absolutely wrecked me and contributed to PND. Feel like I am done with trying to work in film, due to this experience.
Now have DS1 and DS2, 5yo and 2yo. Have returned to the kind of PA/admin work I did in my 20s to pay bills during this time (part-time, wfh).

So:
We live rurally in the South West so local jobs are limited, I need something that is WFH/hybrid - I could commute to Bristol but would like that to be max 1 day per week.
I will be working for next 25 years so want to find something fulfilling but also compatible with smallish kids - hence work/life balance.
I would like to enjoy what I do.
My CV is gappy as hell due to caring for siblings and now my own kids.
The film industry work isn't very "transferable" to anything else.
The admin/PA stuff is boring and I feel demoralised thinking this is it for me, career-wise.
After Uni I had a bunch of management consultancy/law firms make straight offers due to exam results, but those are 2 decades old now. Is there a route into this sort of work?

I've been considering:
2 years masters to train as a Speech and Language Therapist - we went private for DS1 and they are all hugely busy round here, it's nice work and helps people. But it means starting off with a financial outlay - bit scary.

Trying to work out if an English grad could work in tech/coding type stuff - it seems mega-lucrative and flexible - but I'm a long way off being qualified to apply for anything, don't really know where to start, and although clever am not sure I have the maths/science chops for this.

Wild card option would be re-purpose some of my film scripts as YA novels and see if I can earn a living as a creative person - I would love to model this for my kids! But also really want to contribute some financial security to our family and don't think this is the way.

Any thoughts? Very grateful for those who've read this far :)

Well done! Following this as I’m similar - went to Oxford, very much see myself as arts /english person (did History), and worked in education but don’t want to go back.
Currently doing some admin for DH’s business but it barely pays and not ideal.

Did you find software/tech hard to learn? I don’t know if I’m kidding myself given maths isn’t a strong suite but it seems to have worked for you. Not trying to be a data scientist on 6 figures but want to train in something with a skills gap!

@sweetpeaorchestra Oxford have an alumni careers adviser whom I found very helpful, he does online workshops or you can make an appointment to see him individually.

Also an 'Englishy' person, fed up with a career in education and at nearly 41 have just accepted a (temp) civil service role - feels a bit odd doing something on the same level as my first job after uni but it'll give me the chance to try it out and with a small child I need the flexibility. Other CS friends assure me that it's easy to get promoted quickly if you're competent, so let's see... I also did a skills bootcamp in project management which I'm hoping I might be able to train further in at some point. I did have a go at some of the free coding stuff online but I just don't think I'm the right kind of person to spend all day peering at code to try and find the errors, even though I enjoyed learning the coding languages themselves and found that part fairly easy.

Hi @pippinsleftleg, the starting salary come Jan will be mid-30sK, the flexibility by all accounts is excellent, mostly WFH and no set working hours. Training is about 15-20 hours p/w from Sept to late Dec, which is unpaid - technically could be combined with other work but I won't be. I'm hoping to bump up the salary as I get a feel for the company and what path I'll be taking. Feel very positive so far!

@sweetpeaorchestra, hi! The coding is actually a lot of fun, feels more like languages than maths to me (once you get over the initial WTF? factor!)

I started off with this Udemy 100 day course, Angela Wu is a great teacher, and £10.99 is a great price IMHO! https://www.udemy.com/course/the-complete-web-development-bootcamp/ I also hear good things about Codecademy which I think have some 100% free stuff :)

If you can get through it then you'd be well-placed to give the CFG stuff a try - honestly I think the actual teaching isn't the thing CFG do best (ironically!) It's the networking and job-placement thing that they do that is really valuable. But there are lots of other places to find ways to self-teach the basics online.

HI @MaryBoggintonTrotterSmyke that's great about the civil service! Well done!

Just in terms of "spend(ing) all day peering at code to try and find the errors", the company I interviewed with made very clear that it's my soft skills and people management experience from film that they want to utilise - given my age and inexperience they will always have a roomful of people better at coding than me! :) So pointless to use me for that!

I'm hoping that it'll be a short stint at the entry level and then I'll be steered to roles where I can add more value for them - fingers crossed! I'll update this time next year to spill all the beans I guess...

Great to read your updates OP! Well done!

That's good to hear - the whole peering at code thing was something someone (who worked in software themselves) said on a similar thread, which is what put me off following it further. So it's encouraging that that's not necessarily what you have to end up doing! If the whole Civil Service thing doesn't work out I will definitely take another look at going in that direction. I'm sure the money would be better!