Consulting how to start - advice, anecdotes etc

[timeserved]

I am currently GM of a factory, it is a factory in a high tech heavy industry (Aerospace). I was brought in as technical lead to design and build the facility and stayed on to commission and run the place. After 8 years we are in full production, most issues are now minor.

I am bored.

And the reason I have identified is that I am spending a lot of my time on marketing, P&L, H&S. I have learned a lot about business and actually did for a while enjoy that side of my work and obviously H&S is very important.

I would like to get back into solving technical and production problems and making improvements. and see some new environments

I have operational and technical skills which are applicable to the business I am in and skills which are more general such as attaining quality accreditation for various standards and customers and lean manufacturing.

Is it best to be independent self employed or try to join a firm? What is the market like?
What would be the next step

Your main question is one only you can answer really as it depends on your priorities:

Self employed - lots of flexibility, choosing work you find interesting / convenient, money is all yours. No stability, you have to find all the work which can be a slog, periods of no money, no holiday pay, no benefits etc

Employed by firm - stability, routine, just find one job then they find the rest, steady pay, holidays, benefits. No control over the work or the hours, fixed salary they take a lot of the day rate, office politics…

financial services not engineering but I used to recruit a lot of people moving from industry to consulting. The one important question I asked was ‘why will our clients write a big cheque to talk to you?’ A lot of candidates would answer with variations of ‘I know a lot about xyz’. Which didn’t answer my question. So I would suggest you think about how you might approach that. And from that you might consider how much business development you want to do - do you want to consult as an SME as part of a bigger project or do you want to manage/control the client relationship. That might help you decide whether self employment or joining a firm is right for you. Good luck whatever you decide

@FusionChefGeoff @MrsWobble4
Thank you for your replies. I am at the stage of working out what I want the future to look like. I know quite a few people of the generation senior to me who have retired or taken redundancy and then set up consultancies (hobbies) which are basically an updated linked in profile and not much else. I am not in that category I still want and need to work.

I feel like I"m recommending this organisation all the time on here and people will think I work for them (I don't). But I'm in the midst of a career transition after 15+ years in one sector/ organisation and I joined Brave Starts (www.bravestarts.com/) and have found it helpful. It's geared towards career changers with experience behind them.

A lot of the focus seems to be on the potential of freelancing/ 'portfolio careers' and it's through their sessions that I've been encouraged to explore this myself (rather than trying to get a job/ position, which in the current job marketplace seems impossible and is soul destroying). Some of the sessions are more useful them others and I like some of the session leaders more than others. But it's certainly been a really useful part of my career-pivot support system.

This probably isn't very helpful, but I used to be an IT contractor working alongside permanent staff doing a similar role. I learned to be very reliable and conscientious. Partly this was because the staff usually knew much more about the business than me so I could be slower and make mistakes (yes, this is true and at least used to be normal). Being reliable and conscientious was a positive I could control, and I lasted longer than other contractors who would leave early, take long lunches etc.
However contractors can get excluded from useful meetings for permanent staff. I also used to have to work for several months waiting for my invoices to be paid.