Please help me with career change crisis. Civil service to tech?

[buzzheath]

I'm early 30s, civil servant in a policy role (SEO) level. Due to various life circumstances, it's just not a role/lifestyle that really suits me anymore. What's more, the lack of pay progression is also an issue, and the impossibility of higher pay without promotion/significantly more responsibility has made me consider other options.

If I were to engage in blue sky thinking and outline everything I want/need from a career, it'd be this:

• ability to work remotely full-time
• higher baseline pay i.e. between 60-70k
• opportunities to earn more

Any ideas? I am reasonably academic, was good at school, law degree from RG university etc. Was humanities oriented but was also good in maths and science. But it seems the days of data science etc are perhaps behind us. But tech does seem the way to go...

Any advice appreciated! Feeling very lost indeed.

I’m going to be brutal with you - policy SEO to a £65k tech job in the private sector is going to be nigh on impossible. The private sector job market is in dire straits, it’s flooding with civil servants being laid off in the various headcount reduction schemes, corporates don’t really understand or value policy in any case, and they certainly don’t buy into the idea the civil servant generalists can turn their hands to entirely new areas, and on promotion too. You might find a tech role, but you’ll need to drop down in seniority before working your way back up,

My view is that if you have a permanent SRO role right now then stick it out for another year. By that point the exits will have happened, new roles will start to free up again (although I do think they’ll be highly competed for 18 months) - and if you’re lucky the private sector will be more open to taking you on, albeit still at lower seniority that you’d like because that’s just how it works.

Have you looked at digital and tech roles within the civil service? Even as a sideways move to get experience before moving to the private sector?
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/digital-data-and-technology-profession/about

As PP said the tech sector is fairly candidate rich at the moment. You may luck but moving to a sales role or something where some generic skills are helpful and your CS experience may be useful if it's a company that sells to public sector. But honestly, I work in public sector IT and I wouldn't employ someone with no IT experience or qualifications. There's just too many other people out there, even our most basic junior entry level roles are being filled by computer science grads (we don't require a degree for these roles btw that's just an indicationof how competitive it is).

ETA sorry this was a bit negative. I think you'd be best looking at something where your experience may be an asset, so perhaps a sideways move as PP suggested to get experience. Or working in the corporate governance or advisory unit for a large multi national ?