Career change at near 40

[supercee]

Off the back of a couple of other threads, I really want to be in a different job/career by the time I'm 40. I'm 38 now.

I'm single and childless (both of which I can't see either changing anytime soon) so have the time to dedicate to some study so Open University as someone else suggested.

I have been doing admin jobs since I was 18 so have loads of experience in that area but I want something more challenging and to be honest, more money. I am currently on circa £27k which is good for what I do and my job is secure but it is due to unsociable hours which are now killing me and doesn't fit with my lifestyle. My base salary is pretty shit.

Has anyone had a career change at this stage of life and where is hot right now that I could possibly start looking to get into.

I should add that I don't have a degree. The highest qualification I have is an HNC in Social Sciences.

I'm really not sure, which doesn't help anything!

Something which doesn't say requires a complete degree, like nursing or teaching as I couldn't afford to do that. I can afford to do a part time Open Uni course. Something that will hopefully lead to employment at the end, I'm not sure what's in demand and what's been battered by COVID.

Maybe something to do with Social Sciences as I already have a qualification in that and really enjoyed it. That has helped with my admin jobs as they have been in social work, police etc. But I'd like to move on from just admin.

Is there such a thing as an adult career's advisor?!

Have you got any aptitude for numbers? Look at being a data manager, pays about 10-20k more and usually buildable within an organisation.
www.open.ac.uk/postgraduate/modules/m816

I changed career almost accidentally just after 40. I was also admin and moved to a new admin position but ended up helping out in a more technical area of the industry I was in and moving into that completely. My salary has almost doubled in less than 3 years.

Is there nothing you can move into in your current company? Project management type work is often suitable for admins, as it's something a lot of use do as part of our roles anyway.

Do you have experience of admin in different industries? Do any of them call to you as something you would enjoy?

What aspects of your work put you in flow?

Many areas of IT are still hiring, even data management although the area is being saturated with grads after being a buzzword for many years.

If you are interested in problem solving, and have a sharp mind - which as admin you likely will :)

As someone with years of experience you will stand out as a candidate, we actually need people with "people skills" and common sense more than anything else. Project management and being an analyst are areas that have more interaction. Straight coding or development is only less so if the company is crap - you actually need strong collaboration and teamwork skills to be a coder these days.

NHS and social care do need more people in IT, there's a lot of opportunity to make the systems work better for staff. At the moment there's a lot of lost chances to use tech in a useful, get-rid-of-the-crap and let the networkers focus on their job kind of way. I think, anyway!

The only issue is the amount of work involved, you may be lucky but you will need to work for free or build a portfolio online to get experience before getting a chance of getting work. Unless you know someone personally. But it can be part of your studies or you can ask at your current job to help out IT as and when (this is what I did)

Once you have experience you are then open to a wide range of working options. work from home has long been a thing in IT and if you are skilled in a particular tech, there's lots of opportunities abroad. You have a wide range of industries to pick from, from working in glamarous city offices, hands on with frontline workers, or travelling around to different places!

Have a look on jobs boards for inspiration. What jobs do you like the sound of? What additional qualifications would you need to get? Are you willing to relocate?

I think there might be some that you don’t necessarily need to do a degree for to get an entry level job.

Thanks all for your responses.

I'd definitely relocate. Ideally I'd want to stay in my current company (Police) but the last couple of jobs I applied/interviewed for I didn't get them. 9/10 anything internal someone in that department is already earmarked, as has been the case in the last few companies I've worked for. Nothing else has come up recently.

I like the sound of project management, or something to do with research. I did a research and methodology module back when I did my HNC and I enjoyed that.

I was looking at a Business Management course via the OU...