Career change inspiration/advice please?

[PrincessAnne4Eva]

Help! I am 38 and I need a new career! I'm interested in most things and have ADHD (unmedicated due to another health condition that is controlled but wouldn't be if I took ADHD meds; they've tried very hard for years to find one and haven't. It is what it is). Can anyone inspire me please? Some facts:

• I have a degree in an obscure science where no one makes any money. Preposterously, I also did an MSc in it. The MSc had a computer science angle but I have no idea how to get into computer science from this.
• Been there done that with teaching. It's my fallback if I can't think of anything else but I just hated the whole shebang, it's like being back at school all over again and I hated school.
• My second career was marketing but I don't have a degree in it so can't seem to progress beyond exec level and nowhere seems to want to put you in for CIMA anymore, but they want you to have it anyway.
• I like money. I want to be hitting £40k within a couple of years and I want to be able to match DH's salary of c.£55k fairly soon after that.
• I like progression. I want to be moving forwards and not be in a job that only one person in a company can do (i.e. no progression).
• I have an analytical mind. I have done an OU course in maths (MU123) which I am led to believe is equivalent to A-level. I got well over 70%, so a high B at A-level equivalent.
• I am also very creative and have had a successful run of bestselling romance novels before my ability to write them vanished overnight when I had my first DC. But I can't really draw particularly well.

Any thoughts? I don't mind retraining, but am trying to avoid doing another degree due to needing a salary (CoL) and also not wanting even more student loan to repay. Also, I haven't lived in the UK long enough to do the Civil Service as we lived abroad for ages before we returned to England.

GIS?

£40k in two years might be pushing it but ticks it scientific, analytical and creative. I also have ADHD and find it quite tolerable.

Selling higher end cars

Now you mention it, I've already done some GIS as my MSc is in an identical field and I did enjoy it, and finding my way around ARC GIS wasn't too hard, I just don't know how to get a job in it without a "proper" GIS qualification or who employs people to do it, I never see jobs advertised for it but I'm not sure I'm looking in the right places. Is it doable without a specific GIS qualification and potentially a bit of hand holding to get up to speed with the latest software and how to do more advanced things, or would I need to look into further study?

I do love cars actually, so I would love this job, if only there were an Aston Martin garage in my little town in the midlands. 🤣 Those sorts of places do tend to want people who look "nice" though and I struggle to keep on top of my hair and makeup so I'm not sure it'd work for me even if there were a garage around here.

Degree level apprenticeship in some sort of engineering maybe?

What lights you up and brings you joy at work? If money wasn't an issue what would you love to do?

Why has your ability to write vanished? Do you mean in a practical/time sense?

I wonder if it's worth using something like ChatGPT to brainstorm some career ideas for you, based on all your strengths, experiences and interests?

I was talking to a friend who knows about these things recently and she said most jobs that involve GIS don't require a specific GIS degree or qualification, and that actually it can be better to have a degree in something else. What obscure science is your degree in? GIS is used in pretty much every sector so your employer could be anyone, but if it is relevant to what you studied then I'd probably try starting in that area and use a GIS keyword. I'm in the health and environmental science sector so I'm currently on a GIS course learning how to map things like pollution and disease outbreaks. I signed up because I thought it would be a good skill to have, I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I do.

Do you have ArcGIS? I can't run it because I'm on a Mac, so have QGIS instead which is free https://www.qgis.org/ and they have a course you can follow here https://docs.qgis.org/3.34/en/docs/training_manual/foreword/index.html. My course is a short online one with a university and includes cartography (I can PM you the details if you like) but there's also some on Coursera.

If you have ArcGIS then ESRI have a load of free courses you can do https://www.esri.com/training/mooc/

From what I've read on https://www.reddit.com/r/gis/ a lot of people teach themselves and build up a portfolio. I've been jotting down ideas for projects I'd like to do on my own after my course ends.

As the name suggested I'm in Information Security. Governance, Risk & Compliance is a growing field, if you have an analytical mind and a questioning approach then it may suit.

I can't quite tell what it is you do now, you talk about teaching, marketing and your degree but not your current role unless I'm missing it.

Take a look at a few roles in this salary guide just to get an idea of average salaries in various roles and that might give some inspiration

About half way down the page you can select various professions/specialisms, then you can filter down by the levels and types of roles within those professions.

www.roberthalf.com/gb/en/insights/salary-guide

What is GIS?

Geographic information systems.

@VictorianBigot thank you, I wasn't going to mention my current degree as it's quite outing but the handful of people who have heard of it will guess in 5 seconds that it's Archaeological Information Systems. There aren't any archaeology jobs in my area at all and in the years since I graduated I've kept an eye on all the archaeological jobs sites as well as general ones, the other issue is the jobs in archaeology tend to be very difficult to work around children because they're often site-based or involve extensive travel to random sites around the UK, and they're extremely poorly paid in the main.

I would be interested in getting into something like GIS for the environment, agriculture or similar as I've a lot of transferrable skills and have done a lot with environmental archaeology. I've done loads of ArcGIS in the past but not recently. I'm also on a Mac, so will check out the other program, I hadn't come across a non-ESRI GIS program that was even halfway decent but it was 2016 last time I used any!

@InfoSecInTheCity thanks that's interesting. I am technically doing freelance AI training but in reality I am not doing any hours as I lost my childcare in Feb (it got shut down by OfSTED and DC can get into a new nursery in January). I tried getting started in Cybersecurity via the OU a couple of years ago but it didn't really gel, IDK if I would have done better if I'd stuck at it, I just find programming so slow to actually get anything done and can't seem to slow down enough to go through the process and get faster at it. I know there are a lot of different ares of infosec though, are you in a non-programming role? How did you get into it?

I work in information security and do no programming I was a software engineer so can do it but I hate it. I did a pgc in cybersecurity and human factors but I’m not convinced that’s the best way in. There are loads of courses on Udemy and linked in learning. And most roles don’t involve programming or only use it a bit.

I did walk straight into a 40k job that is 90% wfh. The industry is really good for non divergents (I have adhd, my colleague has adhd and half the guys I work with are autistic!)

Hi

Male software engineer here. If you have done some computer science in your MSc I assume you have had some exposure to programming? Have you considered looking for junior software engineer roles? There are also bootcamps but they cost quite a bit (£6-10k) and can get you up to speed. The market is tough right now but women usually have an advantage as it's not particularly diverse and companies want to be more diverse for the most part.

However the plus side is many are WFH now and starting salaries can vary from £30-50k and long term career trajectory is immense from a salary and opportunity point of view.

Hope this helps.