Sorry in advance for a long post. I'm looking for some thoughts on what to do next in my career from some different perspectives as I'm starting to feel stuck and unsure what to do next.
To give you some context, I started working at my current place in 2014 and have since been promoted twice. I am now the team leader and earn about £7k more than when I first started. My job is directly related to an MA I hold for the industry I work in.
I do like my job and when I first started it was exactly what I'd pictured as my perfect job. My manager is supportive but leaves me alone to work on my own projects and the job has fantastic variety. The pay and benefits are fair for what I do and the level I sit at in the organisation.
However, my job has a major disadvantage in that it's 90 miles away from my home town. DH and I have been married a year and have agreed that we'd like to be closer to my family when we start having children as we both feel that his family won't be interested/able in offering any practical help when the time comes.
I have reached the point where I am starting to get itchy feet and want to progress further in my career, but this is where the difficulty comes in. I can't take on any new qualifications/opportunities at my current job as if I leave within 2 years of completing them, I have to pay back the tuition fees (i.e. multiple thousands). However, I can't advance much further without adding some more experience/qualifications to my CV. I am the most senior and qualified person of my profession in my organisation, so I can't shadow anyone for more experience.
I am the chief earner in our house, so any job I look for in my home town needs to at least match my current salary to make selling our house and moving worth our time (DH intends to keep his current job and work from home and commute as needed). But my home town is in a bit of a deprived area, so there is a steep drop in salary for my profession in that area for the same/similar job and responsibility that I hold (I've seen some examples that are £10k less than I earn at the moment, or part time and minimum wage). It's well known in my profession that what you earn varies drastically based on where you live.
There is no possibility of upward movement in my current job. I am as high as I can go while staying in a job that is directly related to my qualifications. (And in all honesty, I see how much my manager has to do, I don't envy her that job).
So far I have only been applying to jobs that are actually something I want to do, I don't need a new job right this second. My concern is that at the moment we are holding off on starting a family to give me time to find a job in/a commutable distance to my home town. I'm worried that if I leave it too long, I won't have been in a new job long enough to be entitled to maternity benefits (though I know you get statutory anywhere). I am also worried as I always planned to have kids before I turned 30, but I turn 29 in February and I'm starting to feel the clock ticking...
Am I better off:
- Re-qualifying as something else to try to meet the sort of jobs I always see in that area?
- Taking advantage of the maternity benefits I've earned at my current job and looking to move back at some unknown point in the future? (and with that, the risk of maybe having to pay back maternity leave and not having any support outside the two of us).
- Taking a big pay cut and downsizing our home so that we can move back to the area?
- Taking any job of a similar salary regardless of any relation to my profession?
- Setting a time limit on how long I'll spend looking for a job before we reconsider starting a family where we are now?
I know that this is a long list of vague worries, but I don't want to be one of those people that loses the chance to have a family because of their career, and equally, the only reason I can think about having a family now is the good position both of our jobs has put us in.
I want my children to see their grandparents and aunts and uncles regularly like I did when I was a kid, which I know won't happen if we don't move.
Please be kind as this is obviously something that I can't talk about with people at work and I'm at a complete loss of what to do for best.