Please help! I STILL can't decide whether to give up my safe, public sector job and go it alone!

[trailingvine]

Hello,

I am on maternity leave with my second child. After DD1, I returned to work 2.5 days per week (0.5 from home) to a well paid, secure public sector job that I really enjoy. The money is enough for us, the arrangements worked well (my mum does the extra childcare, for which I am very grateful) and I did (do?) a job that is quite useful and very enjoyable (for the most part, although working in the public sector with all the cuts and formalities got me down a bit).
Since maternity leave, I've been doing some independent consultancy which I really enjoy, especially the interesting variety of work. I think that there would be enough work to do this as my 'job' on a self-employed basis and it would be a new challenge (and working on Harley Street does feel more glam than my prefab office on a council estate!).

So now, I just can't decide what to do! My options are:

• Putting my independent work down as good experience, going back to my old job and picking it up at a later date (having perhaps lost the useful contacts I've made)

-Giving up my public sector job, the benefits, my (usually) lovely team of colleagues, the stablity etc. and going at alone (albeit with the support of the various organisations that I currently do consultancy work for). -Trying to combine the two.

I was thinking that I could perhaps do two days of employed work and one of independent, which on the face of it seems the perfect solution. This would mean employing a nanny for a third day and would also mean that I would incur all the costs of being an independent practitioner (not premises, but equipment, registration, accountant etc.) for the sake of only one day of work per week. On the plus side I'd still have my stable 'career' and access to work CPD etc. but I'd also have the worst of both worlds (lack of flexibility but also lack of sick pay etc.).

I can't work more than 3 days, as DH also works long hours and I also love being at home with my children who are still tiny.

I know that I'm lucky to be in this dilemma , but I just don't know what to do!

Please share any thoughts, experiences or career advice!

Thanks :)

friend of mind went freelance from public sector worked out very well for her -but her job wasn't as nice as yours sounds. she did wait until her kids were at school though - I wonder if you didn't go back if you would have to pay back maternity pay?

I think combining the two is a great plan. Start with one day of independent work, and that way you keep all the advantages of the public sector job too. Ok, there will be some initial costs but look on it as an investment.

By the time your kids are at school and you're ready to work full time, you'll also have a much clearer picture of where you want to be- either the one day independent work will be going great and you can expand, or you'll still have the security of the public sector job so could ask to up your hours there. I think this is the ideal time to test it out. If you leave it a few years you will probably be ready to increase your hours by then and might not want the juggling of two jobs and testing it out. Test it now, and like I say, you could be working full time independently in a couple of years if all goes well