To think that there are no well paid family friendly careers?

[Careerhelppp]

I’m currently a SAHM to young children. Whilst my children are still young, I’d like to start preparing to return to the workplace in a few years time.

I previously worked in PR in London and have now moved over 300 miles away! The majority of PR is in London so it’s not really feasible for me to return to this. The area I was in was also the opposite of family friendly so it just wouldn’t have worked anyway.

DH is a high earner and there is no need for me to return to work. However I’ve started feeling like I’m just letting all of my potential and independence fade away and that I need to have a plan about getting a career back. The difficult part is that DH’s career completely dominates everything. He works away a lot and at short notice so I’d have to work around this. This is non-negotiable - DH couldn’t not do this and if he moved to a different role, we’d be taking a huge pay cut (probably over double what I’d ever realistically earn).

I’ve thought about law (love the academic side but I don’t think the hours would be flexible enough), teaching (not well paid enough to make it worthwhile for us), accounting, being a financial advisor, even being a therapist.

Ideally I’d like a job that is fairly flexible (eg. Allows me to finish earlier and pick back up in the evening), includes some WFH and is has a salary of over £50,000 if full time. Perhaps something where you could become self employed?

Any ideas?! Totally prepared to do another degree if needed and the cost of retraining isn’t an issue.

There are certainly plenty of well paid jobs which offer substantial flexibility around family life, but in my experience, it's much easier to get flexibility when you are already relatively senior in a company and they don't want to lose you. It's all about leverage.

If you're planning on starting again and getting into a completely new field, I'm not so sure about options. Hopefully someone will have some suggestions.

Are you qualified to work in law or teaching (2 very different jobs with different entry requirements)? Or to jump straight into a high paid flexible role?

I earn £30k for part time work at the local council, mostly from home, but that is with 12 years there, career progression and self funded role specific studying on the side.

Yes I agree. I think most well paid careers can become more family friendly if you’re already fairly high up - eg, law. But there’s no chance at having any flexibility when early in your career which is when I’d need it the most!

This is subjective based on your definition of ‘family friendly’.

Flexibility is about employer rather than industry imo.

If you have experience in PR, why not work freelance doing that?

No I’m not qualified.
I’m prepared to embark upon a degree or training course to become qualified in something though - the question is just what?

Because I did it in a sector that doesn’t have any kind of self employed industry. And I find the sort of PR out of London or perhaps Manchester to be incredibly dull.

I'm pleased you've discounted teaching because of the pay because you'd also discover it's very inflexible, especially in comparison to careers where you can now often work from home. Aside from the holidays, it's not very family friendly.

I managed but I was already established in an IT marketing career and I only had one child who went to ASC, so I collected him at 5.45. I was/am a single mum so it had to work. There wasn't a choice.

Look at maths or science tutoring or teaching swimming if you prefer something self-employed.

I'm a teacher and earn over 50k. I agree it doesn't allow you to do school drop offs and pick ups but the holidays obviously work well when you have school age children.

I’m a civil servant. I earn £85,000, I WFH, I own my own diary never missed a sports day etc. Used to do all the morning school drop offs (DH did pick up, we did use after school club for primary as I don’t believe in not having childcare when working). But now they’re in high school im in when they get home from school, so no latch key kids here.

Exactly. I love the idea of it but the practicality of it just wouldn’t work for me.

Could I ask what department you work for? And could somebody do this with no specific qualification? Thanks for the response 😊.

If your DH is a very high earner I'm not sure why you said teaching is not financially suitable?

Because we’d be making lots of sacrifices for me to work, and it just doesn’t feel worth it for a salary of say £30,000.

Well, nobody is going to walk into a £50k flexible job without prior experience, are they!

Why did you rule out accounting?

Outside of the Big 4/mid tier (top 10) firms you could have that salary once qualified and certainly the flexibility to work hybrid, agree flexible working, and manage your own diary within reason. There will be busier and more stressful periods but that's the same anywhere.

It's a 3-year training contract to get there, but I've known trainees take maternity leaves during their TC and come back on 0.8 contracts afterwards. It obviously takes longer to qualify if not full time but it's possible.

There are lots of family friendly careers.

The problem is you're married to someone whose job takes priority.

Understandable, but it doesn't mean there aren't any well paid family careers for women who aren't.

Right, but like everyone else, you need to play the long game.

Speech Therapy?
Clinical Psychology

I know plenty of women in well paid flexible roles. They absolutely exist in the law, in medicine, accountancy, actuarial, design. But the difference is that they’ve worked their way up before having children and stuck at it with small children. And it’s a slog to get to that stage- a well paid, flexible role is the reward for that, I guess. It is a little much to expect this in any qualified career from the get-go. I think all careers take building up.

Friends who’ve stayed at home with small children and then not wish to return to their own careers have not managed to make a move into another highly paid profession. Most do things like school admin, counselling, admin for small businesses etc.

I didn’t rule it out - I actually don’t know any accountants so didn’t really know how family friendly it could potentially be.

Do you know whether any training contracts would accept part time from the get-go?

Do self employed accountants who do accounting for small businesses earn well?

Accounting trainees also usually have pay rises every 6 months until they qualify. (Unless they're performing badly obviously.)

Teaching is not flexible at all, although for me, having school holidays off with DD balanced out the other inconveniences. I was teaching pre her so that helped. However, you may not earn much when you start, but I earn considerably more than £50k now.

You could specialise in eg legal book keeping. I know someone who does that. You’d have to build up a client base.

Accountancy is good but hard work. I know a qualified accountants working at a firm out of London but I knew another who worked in tax dept of a large firm and she left before she finished her exams. Company were annoyed as they sponsored her/paid for training. If you’re a partner it’s brutal and my boss retired at 50. Women still get discriminated against too at that level in some old school firms but hopefully that’s changed now.

If you have a degree you can do a one year law conversion degree.

I think this is a bit unrealistic.

There are lots of jobs like you describe for people with experience behind them and the skills to make them attractive enough to employers to balance out their need for flexibility. But retraining is going to put you at entry level, and you will be competing with grads who can offer total commitment.

I think you will need to accept that to completely change careers, and progress, you need to be able to give it the same as you would have done in your 20s.

I think the options are:

• take a job with low expectations of commitment (e.g. with fixed hours around school or at the weekend), but accept that this is going to be lower pay than you want
• find something you do have experience in, to get back into the workplace more easily
• find a self employment route
• get better childcare, and give your all to retraining in something you are passionate about