I had a career break due to us relocating away from the location my (creative, publishing-related) industry was almost-solely based in (London) when my second DC was a baby. I chose to take a couple of years break because of this to focus on being a SAHM, with the idea that I would then retrain/look for work in a different field.
It proved far more difficult than I expected to get back into work after the career break - not helped by the fact that, although reasonably successful previously and with 17 years experience in my field, I'd worked in a very niche area without many solid proveable transferable skills.
So I did bits and pieces of low paid low skilled part time work for a few years, with no success at all when I tried to apply for better full time positions. Eventually (after 7 years out of full time employment) I did get offered a full time job in a field not a million miles from my previous line of work and skill set - but different enough that the only job I could get was an entry level, graduate starting type role, with a salary only very slightly above the living wage. It was at a salary level I'd previously been earning in 2020, well before I had a mortgage or children and when the cost of living was much lower. (I'm 50 now). I was happy to do it to gain experience, learn and hopefully progress within the company, but the reality was, in over a year of employment and the company professing to be very happy with my work, I had a very tiny pay increase, no obvious progression route, and as a family we were finding surviving with large mortgage and general cost of living increases very difficult. So I felt like the onus was on me to shift to something that would enable me to properly provide for our family
I was offered a free place on a retraining bootcamp course in a tech field, so I took it, even though far from my original line of work or experience. I felt I needed to embrace opportunity and look where jobs and demand lies. I've now got a job in the field, paying much better than previously. We can pay our bills and the prospects are, in theory, extremely good. However, it's not a large salary for the level of responsibility. The level of responsibility is considerable, so much can go wrong, the pressure feels great and I'm still very much learning on the job. I feel overworked and constantly stressed and out of my depth. I don't think I can learn enough fast enough to do this. I feel out of my natural area of talent and I'm not sure if I can make myself fit. I'm stressed all the time and it's having a big effect on our family and my relationship with my DH.
I feel like I've gone from one extreme to the other - low paid undemanding, but can't really survive on it, to reasonably well paid but overworked, stressed and drowning.
I need to be aiming to earn at least about £30K for us to manage as a family going forwards. Anyone got any ideas about what I could retrain in relatively quickly/cheaply or what routes I could look into shifting towards, esp with creative/publishing experience? I have very little admin experience, which doesn't help. I'm having ADHD assessment at the moment and find managing large complex long-running tasks with lots of admin involved very overwhelming. I'm good at short quick tasks with variety - creative-thinking and communication-based tasks are particularly good for me. I do enjoy working with people, I think my people skills are pretty good, although I'm also good at self-led solo work as long as I'm not swamped in admin.
I'm enjoying the people-training and communication side of my current work more than the techy admin-heavy side. I don't think I'll ever have a techy mindset, unfortunately, even though I'm really trying.
I'm just wondering if there's anything I haven't considered. Especially that's suitable for a career change at my age. I don't have to become high earning, but I need to earn just enough. Any ideas, anyone?!? Please help!
(Oh and I'm really squeamish so nursing, healthcare etc is not going to work)