Job with lots of annual leave

[Perfectjobdreaming]

I love travelling so looking for a job with good annual leave, possibility to purchase annual leave or work from overseas. Am I dreaming

I am an Accountant; previous job which I am leaving allows you to purchase 10 days annual leave and potentially do unpaid leave

Perhaps working for a school?

@PerfectjobdreamingWhere are you based? I work for an accountancy firm in top 10 which is very flexible and can work abroad from approved countries (might be 30 days at a time). I’m manager level and have 27 days holiday plus bank holidays, and then purchase another 10 on top. We have flexible working and wfh availability (but some teams can ask for a couple of days in the office). We tout our flexible working policy a lot, so if there is pushback you can speak with the internal ‘diversity’ strand leaders (we have one for working parents) and they can assist with detailing out the policies and helping you.

There are also members of my firm on annualised hours, which allows them to take time off at specific points of the year (like school holidays). If you have a clear plan so they can coordinate when you are expected to be off, I don’t see why that couldn’t be a possibility.

The only caveat I will say is that I am on the tax side, so can’t speak for the audit side. Also, our regional firms are much more flexible than London, so if you are in the latter I wouldn’t recommend us really.

Thank you,

I am in London; work in accounting support rather than audit. I am just not sure I want client facing again; however your firm sounds miles better than the big 4 I work for.

Each civil service dept is slightly different but ours is 25days AL on entry rising to 30 after 5yrs service. Opportunity to buy 5days AL. Plus flexi leave of up to 2days per month. So working cleverly with the bank holidays can give you quite a substantial amount of time off.

I think the key to avoid this sort of situation is to avoid "customer / public facing" type of roles. I work in a policy / strategy roles. Noone has ever cared when I take my AL. This summer ive had 3 weeks off that coincided with all others in my team having their AL and noone has stopped me. I know teams that are more operational do need to manage cover and making sure there are sufficient staff available but id avoid those types of roles. If you looked for a CS finance type role, you would probably need to avoid taking leave around year end, but you might be fine for all other times of year. Theres a good new CS website with profiles of the different departments so you could have a read. https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/

Thank you. I leaning towards civil service or local authority; just wondering how easy or complicated is to get a job in these sectors though.

I am looking for worth life balance after 5 stressful years in a corporate client facing role.

work life balance not worth 😂

Civil service can differ but in my experience, it’s tricky and time consuming. Rounds & rounds of interviews and it’s more about getting the right words rather than actually being the best person for the job. I’d also be wary that you could spend hours on an application for a job that was actually only advertised because it HAD to be, but in reality was created for a specific person internally and just has to be advertised externally to look fair. That said though that’s the case in lots of jobs now and if you don’t apply you’ll never know!

I don’t know anyone in civil service who gets the kind of flex you want or the level of leave without having 10+ years service though.

Teach accounting at a uni! You’re limited to not taking leave during the teaching weeks so that’s the downside but perks are big annual leave allowance, choice to buy more and carry over too if needed and they don’t mind you taking big chunks over the summer as there’s very little going on there and it’s to be expected when you can’t take it for rest of the year. So could do some real adventures

My experience is quite different to that of @Mrsttcno1. For my department, the general rule is the standard psychometric tests that everyone has to do to qualify. Then there is an application sift followed by a face to face interview which comprises of a presentation + questions (you get the presentation topic usually a week in advance) plus 4 or 5 behaviour based questions based on the CS behaviours. There are lots of websites with info on how to sit CS interviews. In my team, I have a great mix of external hires plus internal promotions or sideways moves from other depts so certainly not the case that it's not a real ad or earmarked for someone. In the CS, you don't have to advertise externally (unless its SCS1 upwards) so if we know we have strong internal candidates, we just do an internal only recruitment, so you would never even see the ad. But 9 times out of 10, we advertise externally and its a genuinely fair recruitment campaign.

Thank you both.

The joys of job hunting 😅 I really need to get my mental strength, persistence and positivity for these processes; it is certainly becoming more difficult as I get older.

Teacher

I suppose it depends how far you want to push with your employer, but it’s statutory leave and they absolutely can’t refuse it and stay on the right side of employment law. I appreciate you may not want to rock the boat though

any employer you go to will have the same entitlement so you can use this in any job (all the while kids are under 18 at least)

Thank you. It is good to know.

They can refuse it - well, they can refuse the dates you ask for "for operational reasons" but must give you other dates.

Don’t work in my workplace! We get the bank holidays taken out for our AL and then have to take a week off at Xmas. We get about two weeks of holiday we can choose ourselves 🙁.

I’m thinking you aren’t based in the UK? All UK publicly funded universities have a 31st July year end. The one I work at has 25 days annual leave, 8 days public holidays plus an extra 9 days for university shutdown at Christmas and Easter. So a total of 42 leave days.

Anywhere that will give you an annualised hours contract, or a part time one that allows you to do extra days and take back as toil.

I work three days a week and build up a lot of leave through as hoc extra days that come up.

IME most of them, especially in the larger schools which is the only way OP would get a comparable salary, work all year. You get the same holiday allocation as elsewhere, but still have to take holiday in school hols.

If you do get school holidays, they're unpaid.

When I worked for a London Local Authority, I was amazed how much holiday I got.

Not in most private schools though. The business manager/bursar role tends to be a rather demanding, year-round role with only the standard amount of paid leave - and that leave usually has to be taken during the school holidays when the pupils are not present.

It can be difficult to find the time to take any time off, as during the school holidays all the maintenance and building issues need to be dealt with and managed, in addition to invoicing for fees, preparing financial statements, business planning for capital projects etc etc.

I guess it would depend on the number of staff involved in back office admin. If the bursar is on his/her own or with just one assistant, they'll rarely if ever get everything done. But if there's a whole team of people, it would be easier to escape for a bit of paid leave from time to time.

Thank you all. I think I have discarded schools. Will keep an eye for LA jobs.

I am not sure reg civil service as I may have to wait a few years to build up my annual leave which is no ideal.

Universities still an option, but if they all have July end financial year, does this mean no holiday in summer?

Other option is continue working in private sector, perhaps higher salary and take parental leave; maybe somewhere that offer the possibility to purchase holidays.

How much holiday you got in the LA? Did you enjoy working there?

NHS has really good annual leave.

Am I crazy in trying to move sectors? Current salary 70k plus 5k in pension as I do higher contributions and company tops up.

I do want better work life balance.

Ohh not, is this legal? Are you in the UK?

The civil service allows term time or PT contracts plus unpaid leave so maybe have a look at CS jobs? Plus accountants are in short supply.