Leaving teaching for non-teaching private sector

[user1471530109]

Not a very catchy title.

I'm just wondering if any of the many ex teachers (and I know there are many threads) left and moved into something completely different in the private sector?

Firstly, I don't dislike my job. I dislike my school and know it's ready to move on. I've decided this is my last year.
But I'm also sick of just getting by. I'm at the top of my salary scale, a middle leader (and no desire to be on SLT) and just not able to live comfortably as a single mum on my salary. The debt is making me depressed and I feel I need to make a drastic change to get out of this mess.

I was having a conversation with a friend about her son who works for JLR. He is much younger than me, no qualifications yet is earning 50% higher than me with a bloody amazing company car. I remember my dad telling me to consider JLR when I first graduated years ago (his whole working life was JLR) and I'm kind of kicking myself now.

Does anyone have any insight? I've started looking into it but it feels a bit overwhelming. I was reading about their education programme with schools and thought that might be where to start looking into it.

Or am I kidding myself? Are they really likely going to be interested in a mid 40s ex teacher who has taught for 22 years and feels like that's all she knows?!

Also. Am I brave enough? I feel like it's a drastic change but I don't want to be spending the next 20 years not 'living' as I can't afford to bloody do anything!

1. What’s your pay now if you don’t mind saying?

You can’t be doing badly if you’ve been there 22 years, unless you have absolutely zero additional responsibilities? In which case you’d be hard pressed to demonstrate a range of transferable skills and initiatives needed to earn higher rates in any private sector job. Not least because higher salaries almost always come with people management responsibilities unless you’re and amazing salesperson. But despite having taught you can’t simply then “go into management” … which was what I heard most people say they’d do if they were to move when I was a teacher. Incidentally I had to leave, retrain and pay to do a masters and then work 5y before my salary was even close to what I earned as a teacher (including pensions). Now 8 years later I still earn around the same, because I don’t have the capacity to take on the additional responsibilities to go further up the pay scale right now.

PLEASE don’t forget that your salary is MUCH better than you think because of your pension contributions. Teaxhers receive more than 23% in contributions from their employer, in the private sector it’s on average THREE PER CENT.

Don’t forget that you also effectively don’t get paid for holidays so again your annual salary is worth much more when you think about time actually worked. Would you then need to pay for childcare in the holidays? That would be a big cost if you do.

I worked out that as a teacher on 40k I’d need to earn close to 60k in the private sector to match my overall pay. That includes pro-rating the weeks worked to 52 from 39 (includes 5wks paid holiday for both), the difference in employer pension contributions and a bit more for childcare.

Unless you have a valuable, current and rare skill it is HARD to earn 60k in the private sector, especially outside the south east and even more so without experience! It often comes with hard sales targets or a lot of people management which believe me is NOT much easier than managing kids as you have to be bloody “nice” to people and poor performers are impossible to get rid of.

which takes me to…

2.What can you actually DO?

What is your subject, what are your transferable skills, how are they relevant, what role would you want, what are you prepared to do to get paid the level I think you’re after?

You mentioned the schools programme, what is this? It sounds like a good Segway in but I can’t see it being particularly highly skilled or lucrative so it won’t be that well paid.

How would you manage a period of job insecurity? As a teacher you’ve never faced that before, but in the private sector it’s usually last in first out during a downturn, could you manage that?

Sorry for the long reply. But the grass always looks greener when really it’s not.

To add above…. I’d then need to put a big chunk of my salary away into a pension if i were to have any chance of having a decent retirement… and I’m putting it into a pension that is by far inferior to a teachers pension as it’s just a pot not an income stream. So either id have less money to live on now or less money to live on later. It’s not as straightforward as you think.

Thank you for your reply. I needed to hear that.

I've been a Head of Department for 10 years of a science department. So I have had experience of controlling a budget, managing people, meeting tight deadlines, data analysis etc etc.

My salary is about £48k.

From what I've been told (and I haven't looked into this), JLR have a very good pension. My dad retired early, still has a company car.

I just feel like I'm kind of 'done' with my career progression at the moment and yet I've got 20 years of working ahead of me. My salary is stuck yet life has spiralled out of control with costs. I don't get a holiday etc. As a single parent household, that salary doesn't go anywhere. My DC are old enough that childcare isn't an issue. That's another reason I feel now could be the time to 'get out'.

@ZippyTheZebra are you saying you regret leaving teaching?

I switched from teaching to a corporate role. It hasn’t been easy to get here and my pay is currently similar to yours, however, my progression is far clearer and the eventual salary I could reach is much higher. I don’t really want to go into details here as I think it’s quite identifying but happy to answer questions via pm

Oh and I agree with many of the above points by other posters. My company pays 8% into my pension and I pay 5% - this is quite good for private sector. I get 28 days holiday plus bank holidays - also good for private sector and many companies give less.

corporate roles about social impact or schools liaison are not especially well paid - lower than teaching at your level

When you say the pension at JLR is very good…. If we’re talking private sector that’s likely 7% only. Majority private sector is around 4%. It’s honestly not all rosey in private either - particularly now with government taxing businesses- and you really need to consider job security is much much lower than public sector. I’m in a big corporate, global tech company, and we regularly do mass layoffs across the company. Social impact, DEI, sustainability etc roles often fall victim if companies are battling to offset extra costs elsewhere (currently to offset extra NI).

Don’t forget that it’s not just the contributions that are different to a pension, it’s a fundamentally different benefit.

There is categorically no way JLR offers the same pension to new workers today that they gave to your dad OP. Your dad will have retired with a defined benefit pension that paid him a very generous income all the way through his retirement until he died. These were almost universally shut down in the private sector around 30+ years ago because they were too expensive. The criminality of it (not literally) was that no one noticed because no one who was young enough to be affected understood what was happening (effectively the private sector took a 25% pay cut in one foul swoop) and no one who was older was bothered because they had their fat DB schemes. In the private sector now you just have a pot and when it runs out it’s gone.

As you have a teachers pension you’ll already have built up great security in retirement, so you could afford to put in less now BUT… you’d be taking a pay cut to move which was your whole point of leaving.

£48k is a really good salary, I wish more teachers realised this. It’s the equivalent of around 63k in the private sector which is almost double the average salary. (I pro rated this to 52 weeks and added 20% for the difference in pension contributions).

I don’t regret leaving but I left because I wanted a job where I was producing the output (I went into research)… not teaching other people how to do it, not because I had any issue with the system or school. I just like actually doing the writing rather than marking it!! I’m definitely happier but I will not end up earning much more in the long run because the skills you need to earn more in the private sector (technical, sales, professional qualifications etc) are not the ones you use in teaching.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t leave! For sure, go and look and maybe give something a try! Just exploring will help you get over this hump.

You DO have skills and you ARE an asset, but in the same way that you wouldn’t pay an NQT 48k to do your role for several years, it will take time to get to that level in private and your future potential salary could be probably capped at around a similar (equivalent) level because of the skills needed to earn more.

Plus there are far fewer decent jobs in private sector as you grow older, especially with a decent salary. The average worker see their income peak in their late forties, depressing but true.

Have you thought about tutoring to increase your pay? You can easily earn £30+ an hour or more depending on where you live and what age / subject you teach. Some charge up to £50 or more.

£150 a week over 3-5 hours and 40 weeks could be another £6k a year. I know lots of people who do this through the school holidays and not term time for example… there are platforms you can advertise through I believe but I don’t know any. People can come to you so you don’t have to travel.

I can imagine it’s frustrating as a single parent HH and you’re right, it’s kind of now or never. BUT as a single parent HH the risk of job insecurity in private sector will be so much more acute, especially as AI starts to take over.

I would:

1. start looking at private sector jobs, there’s no harm and it will help any decision making
2. also look for a new school since you say it’s the school you don’t like
3. look into tutoring to boost your income, especially in school holidays
4. talk talk talk to people, reach out to old colleagues etc, but please remember that confirmation bias is real!! Everyone will tell you that they would never go back to teaching blah blah when really no one wants to admit they’ve done anything other than the perfect decision!

Note above - 6k example is before tax not after.

@user1471530109 where are you based? That salary is extremely low for a head of science post. You are being massively underpaid.

Even if you were on just UPS3 in England your pay in September would be £51,048 - not including a TLR

I would suggest moving roles!

I agree with pp-that is a low salary for a hod science role. In our school (secondary comprehensive) that role would be about £58k if not a bit more.

And the equivalent of this for a private sector role based on the above is £78k, so OP you can see how hard it’s getting to reach equivalent sorts of sums outside your current role, if that’s what your motivation is.

great spot by PPs on this salary, hopefully it can give OP what she needs which is a bit more income… maybe along with some tutoring.

Thanks everyone. Really useful.

I know the salary is low. It's a small school (but grown a lot over the last 10 years and my salary hasn't). The school is definitely struggling for money+no way would they agree to a pay rise. I wasn't more as 2nd in dept at previous school. I know it's time to move on. I'm just waiting my daughter to do this final year (she's at same school and has ASD). Her younger sister would easily cope without me there.

You'd think a smaller school would be less stress and work but it's the opposite. Ive not got enough staff to delegate jobs too plus we've had half the department off sick. It's been a bloody horrible few years to be honest. Which when the pay is crap is not making it worthwhile. I've gotten into debt just by living. No holidays or expensive car. My car is on its last legs!

I did tutor but for overwhelmed with the amount of work so didn't last year. That was a mistake and already have a client lined up for next term. I was going to aim for 3 a week. It will pay for my DD's expensive hobby (which is highly likely going to lead to her career-not to mention it's her special interest with her autistic traits. I've been trying to keep this up for her).

I just have visions of a nice company car (mine is causing me stress) and having money to actually do nice things like go out for dinner and save for an annual holiday. I can't see a proper way out at the moment. I suppose when the DC becomes more self sufficient 🤞 that will help.

Thank you all again for your comments

Wishing you the best, and please come back on here to chat about anything you find that’s interesting?! I’d be interested to hear and I’m sure lots of people could help with how to make things transferable if you wanted to.

Or how to find a better paying role in another school for same job / approach your current school about your own salary. Lots of people will have done it successfully before.

Best of luck, and even though you might not have been able to give your kids exotic holidays, they’ll have loved having you around throughout their summers x