i was suppose to attend a meeting at the job center with a compliance officer i phoned up to rearrange the appointment as i wasnt well and she is now coming to the house tomorrow can any one tell me what its all about

fsmail - thanks for the heads up on just how costly the regulation and compliance is. I previously worked in sales so I am not too worried about being self-employed. If it weren't for the regs and compliance costs I wouldn't be too worried about the time to build up a client base. I think I will crack on with gaining the qualifications, maybe focussing on the mortgage advice ones first. That way whilst the kids are very small I can try and get some part time employment to build up my experience and finish off the full IFA exams. Then as the kids go to school I can maybe look at going self-employed and really putting the effort into building up a client base.

I have been an IFA for 15 years and have been both employed and self-employed. I have now gone to work in house as a pensions officer. The good bits about being an IFA is that it is a fairly flexible job around kids. Most people can only see you in the evenings anyway. Being self-employed is extremely difficult however as the regulation and compliance that you need to do are excessive and costly. You need to be earning an income of at least £10,000 just to be covering the costs. I would suggest you start taking your exams but then you will need some post exam experience to be able to be registered with the FSA as you need to be considered competent before you can do this. I would speak to Positive solutions as a provider of regulation and compliance frameworks. I will be honest I am not the greatest sales person in the World so I found being self-employed very difficult and it takes along time to build up a client base. Why not try working in admin first to learn all about the work after you have done the exams. If you would like to speak to me further I will be happy to let you know. I worked mainly on the corporate side in my later years which is how I ended up being a pensions officer which I love.

one of my previous jobs was working for a bank, training to be an investment manager, needing similar quals to an ifa. from what i remember it was all about selling. you might find an easy way into this is via a bank job. i got the first part of the course done which was a certificate in something or other (sorry-braindead), but it was rumn by the securities institute. you may be able to do this in your area and it is very well recognised. here is a link sec.inst

How about searching for course providers to see what courses they offer. They also tend to have links to the official bodies websites which should be able to give you more info in to the requirements and routes that you need to take.

Also websites aimed at students may also be helpful as they sometimes tend to go into more detail of how to go about getting into a career so may have some useful hints ... the doctorjob website is one I remember.

Tribpot - thanks for the kind offer, however given that I am at the fairly early stages I just needed to know that launching into the study program wasn't going to be a waste of time and to have a rough idea of what else I might need to be conscious of in terms of work experience. By the time the kids are old enough for me to want to work chances are the exact regulations will have changed anyway. I appreciate the time that everyone has already spared in answering this thread.

MT - if you want to email me at trib at amileformaude dot com I can give you my real name if you want to phone Diane (obviously she doesn't call me tribpot! She has been lovely and sponsored me for our Mile for Maude though).

One thing she did say to me, which is mentioned in NK's post below, is that some of her clients prefer a woman adviser as they feel (rightly or wrongly) that women are more honest and straightforward. I'd selected her firm because she was a woman - I wanted to talk our finances through with someone who would understand the various and competing priorities of being a mum, a carer (my dh is chronically ill), an employee - and a person!

Tribpot - It's (correct use of apostrophe) a nice looking website. Again it is good to hear that it does seem to be a sector that is amenable to working mums. I will bookmark her website for future reference.

Only thing I can add is that my mortgage advisor is fabulous, and her firm is women-only (I don't think on purpose, it just happened) and they're all mums.

If you want to give her a call she is v approachable Diane Saunders and yes, I have told her off about the mis-use of the apostrophe on her home page!

Thank you both for all the advice. Definately lots for me to think about - but that's why I wanted to ask at this early stage so that I was realistic in my expectations and didn't put lots of energy into something that wasn't going to work in practice.