Career change to HR - L&D or Employee Experience?

[backatchababy]

I'm stagnating in a lovely but very junior role and need a new challenge with some potential for career progression. I think HR possibly L&D or Employee Experience are the direction I want to move towards so wondering if anyone working in this industry can advise route to entry, areas of specialism, courses to consider - anything I can do to help kickstart a new career later in life. I'm on a fixed contract until end Jan and have spare time to study/research possibly even get some PT voluntary experience if such a thing exists.

Any thoughts on what type of HR role might best suit based on parts of my job I enjoy the most:
running courses/leading workshops, copywriting / internal comms , volunteer recruitment and retention, organising events, compiling surveys. Less interested in the analytical side and M&E side.

I've looked at the CIPD courses but can't afford the £1.5k I've seen advertised and it's been so long since I've studied I'd proably want to start at L3 - do I absolutely need this or do employers typically fund?

How junior will I have to go? I'm currently in an officer type role on £30k (in SE) and don't want to drop below this. Happy to take on an admin type role to get the experience if that's what it takes, but wouldn't want to be doing that for another 3 years. And what is the next job like? I'm 51 so conscious time is of the essence to maximise income if I've got any chance of retirement before 90!

Is hybrid or even remote working an option in this industry? Currently fully remote and would happily move to hybrid (would consider London based for the right salary) but not interested in full time office job now.

Any advice much appreciated.

Mostly replying to bump your post.

As a general rule, if you're trying to break into a new career you will need to be attending in person probably most of the time. As you develop and establish yourself, hybrid working may be more possible depending on the employer. HR/L&D roles can involve lots of onsite time meeting with people and building relationships. Although video calling technology does make remote meetings possible, it's difficult to build relationships that way and not the first choice for difficult conversations. It also won't enable you to learn from people around you.

From what I hear, entry level HR roles are competitive as lots of people have similar thoughts to you. Whether you could go in higher would really depend on how well you could harness what you do now to pivot.

Also, L&D is one of the areas in organisations to suffer cutbacks in times of economic pressure. I'm hearing a lot lately from L&D people that their budgets are being cut and they're expected to do more with less. That's not to say that a pivot into L&D would be impossible, but something to consider.

If you're considering L&D, have you looked at the Learning and Performance Institute to get more of a sense of it?