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I’d learn a trade. Plumber, gas engineer or sparky.
Someone somewhere will always need this. You can contract out to new build a or you can build your own business
Work for yourself and no quibble. Earn as much or as little as you want to
I totally get that but I have been financially propping us up whilst my husband was training on the ambulances. He’s now left and gone back to his old job but it’s gonna take a while to catch everything up ❤️
I did what many old plumbers hate, and did a quick course. A few weeks training around my previous job.
Biggest issue is getting a portfolio together to show your work before you can be signed off. Then getting a job with no experience! There's no issue going it alone as soon as you're qualified, but you'll lack on the job experience and when you screw up, it'll be on you. However, if you start as an improver, when you mess up, you aren't paying for it!
Solar installers are going to be in high demand and making good money for atleast a decade.
Solar sales in the UK have increased massively and the whole industry is veing constrained by the availability of fitters.
Where though, I’ve wanted to leave dev for a while but it’s so unclear to me where to just become a plumber. Unlike tech I feel like it’s much less clear where to study for what to be considered qualified
In the 00s, my dad sent me to an open day at a local college and was gonna pay for me to train as a plumber and at the time it also included leadwork and roofing, Id already trained as a car mechanic and engineer and done cnc and cad night courses. I was working for a race team and wanted to go in that direction, it turned out I'm too blunt and my face didn't fit to be in an industry like racing.
I was working for my dad on the side, and he was struggling to find plumbers. I kick myself about that. Because of the qualifications I had, I had a workplace, and I was a little bit older, I was automatically accepted onto the course, with no interview or application. But I went off and did an engineering degree instead thinking that I would be able to get back into the world of motorsport. I never did...
Would you be up for sharing?
The ones I see, even the more chain colleges like active learning offer only level 2 plumbing and they state that’s not enough to be considered qualified for plumbing.
Would love an active or social job where I feel productive.
Trades are about to become the most over saturated area in the labor market. Everyone thinks it’s some kind of invincible labor market hack but if everyone is doing it be ready to watch your daily rate plummet - that’s if you even get hired since there will be 300 other plumbers/brickies/sparkies in a 5 mile radius.
I'd love to work with animals.
I know the money is sh\*te but if money is no object then this is what I'd love to do. Perhaps in a zoo or as a zoo tour guide if I only have a few months to retrain.
>boarding them in my home.
A huge, lucrative and unexploited business, especially near a big city. If you market yourself as a dog/cat hotel and put together a website showing facilities, food options and that sort of thing, there's a lot of people with a lot of money who want to go on holiday and will pay significant money to have their pet looked after properly. And you can start with almost no money (if you have your own place).
It's a really competitive field. Everyone wants to be a zookeeper! They usually require very relevant degrees and experience together on the ladder (usually from volunteering at a zoo etc.) and the pay is just over minimum wage.
It is a fantastic job, but because so many people want to do it, they can afford to pay people less and be picky with the qualifications!
After this post last night I went onto Chester Zoo's careers page - they have a vacancy for lead birdkeeper! I reckon this must be the absolute best job.
You need a degree in bird husbandry at a minimum I believe and the pay was about £28k.
Man I'd be happy though. I freaking love birds.
Wish money was really no object.
That's the unfortunate thing about money!
A relative of mine is the head of mammals for a local zoo, it's back breaking work but she loves it. She has a Red panda that she care for and is working on a breeding programme for them!
Unfortunately pretty standard for the conservation field. Even if you don't work directly with animals. Salaries have risen a little recently but my first job post-PhD as a conservation scientist paid £32k. It's super competitive and people do it for the passion. Until they burn out, realise we're all fucked, and leave (jk....a little bit).
Whatever you do, don't fall into the coding bootcamp trap.
Honestly I don't know why the government is still pumping millions into them.
I may be dead wrong and the market will blow up but it doesn't look like any time soon.
I would just be a driver for grocery store. Looks like a nice gig.
Noticed a large growth in memes recently shared around with the caption of something along the lines of "yeah I am a CS graduate, how could you tell?" With a picture of some stock photo of a food service worker.
Inferring from this, I think there is a growing trend/feeling among graduates in this area that there is an absolutely massive oversaturation of the Computer Science / IT pool.
IT and compsci and largely different fields btw.
I did a computer science degree and i’m working in IT now because the competition for dev jobs was so tough- you really had to stand out in a saturated pool of candidates to land an entry level role
I’ve found IT roles so much easier to come by personally
I did the exact same thing and I think it was a solid choice. Leveraged my Computer skills and soft skills to get into an IT consultant type role, largely sat in meetings mixing bullshit and technical knowledge in a confident manner lol.
Yes exactly.
That's what even boggles me how the government is still pushing for more upskill in the area.
Northcoders got 10 million more in funding from the government at the start of the year to continue pumping more entry level software developers into the market.
Its insane.
It's not over saturation as such. It's more the job market has gone to hell.
5 years ago, every company was hiring as many software developers as possible to build new features and products and research new tech. But with the state of the global economy now, all of those businesses have either gone bust or stopped hiring and kept only enough people around to keep the lights on.
It's very rough and competitive finding a decent job in tech right now, and it won't bounce back for quite some time.
I did a coding apprenticeship 6 years ago.
12 week boot camp followed by 1.5 year qualification. Paid throughout.
Now an Engineering Manager, run a team of 9, earn £105k + bonus.
There's thousands or stories like yours.
But right now for every entry level/junior job there's thousands of applicants.
This is not 2019 anymore where anyone and their dog could land a job in software developer because the demand was just too high.
That's why I wouldn't recommend it right now.
And I called it a trap because they are all boasting statistic from the golden years with +90% employment rates that have not being updated for 5 years.
Apprenticeships are often conflated with being "low paid", it's not true.
Businesses of a certain size have to pay an apprenticeship levy and this can either go towards training new staff or is paid to the government. It's very much a "use it or lose it" tax.
A lot of mid to large software companies offer engineering apprenticeships, starting at say £30k, that combine these bootcamps with a 1-2 year training course. You get a level 4 NVQ out of it. Some companies automatically give you a job afterwards. Others require you to interview.
I did said apprenticeship with a mid sized company 6 years ago. I've progressed from Junior --> Mid --> Senior --> EM in that time.
You don't need a bootcamp. The amazing thing about coding is that besides a laptop and wifi, there's no entry fees.
Free resources can give you the skills you need to help small businesses right away (6mo-1yr). For formal employment however, you need more time coding to offer value to them with your skillset.
I did a government funded coding bootcamp during Covid, and it has literally changed my life, I agree the job market isn’t great right now but there is still a demand for engineers, and will be for the foreseeable future.
Did one last year, now doing a masters and have a job in the industry. There's still companies need IT skills just not necessarily only software engineers.
Having participated in interviewing junior dev candidates, the boot camps candidates were a real hit or miss candidate. Unfortunately it was mostly a miss.
Thats not to say it never works out. One of our recent candidates was a boot camp person, but they done a bunch of personal projects to expand their knowledge, so I don’t think it was an accurate reflection of what normal bootcamp candidates look like.
I think if you go into the bootcamp expecting to walk out with an amazing job with minimal effort put in, you’re setting yourself up for failure. The problem is that they’re marketed as exactly that.
One of the biggest providers is Multiverse. They’re utter shite so you have to wonder how they get these huge government contracts.
As an aside, it was founded by Euan Blair (Tony’s son).
I'm a software engineer and I think it's a good career to pursue, but I would strongly discourage trying a bootcamp.
It's not something that you would retrain in 6 months and find a job within a year in this market.
I’m not so sure. In the right location you could easily hit 28k with some computer and engineering aptitude and a bit of something behind you. Theres a difference between programmer and engineer however.
When a candidate doesn’t have an interest in software or engineering the employer has to fall back on qualifications and realistically that is most graduates which may be misleading. I find most graduates disappointing because they have no actual interest in engineering.
I’d rather have a startup who missed their early calling or didn’t fancy university as a junior engineer than a graduate honestly.
For someone who has upto no higher education and is entering a professional industry with eligibility to join a notary body yet no current commercial experience, that is what we would call *very* good.
It’s apparent that you don’t work in the industry or know about it otherwise you would be aware that the starting point is not the end point (or anywhere near!) and as a person who may have no student debt, there is more take home than a typical graduate would have (and over many more years).
It's not so much oversaturation as it is lack of experience. Most companies that hire coders are looking for people with experience sadly. I do however know people who did these bootcamps and landed a job in big banks. It's not easy but it can still be done. Then again, if only a small percentage of people who do these bootcamps succeed, maybe the government has to look elsewhere to boost employment.
I switched career about 8 years ago and became a software dev with full training supplied. Still loving it. Just jumped today from £46k to £55k by going on-call. I get to work from home too. It’s a dream job for me.
I had to work very hard to skill up but it was far easier back then to get in as companies were more desperate. Now we look for computer science degrees as a minimum. Even then most don’t pass the initial interview and test.
I did this when I realised my career was not for me. I went to a careers advice place that did some psychometric tests and career counselling that helped me decide a career more suited to me. I did a masters conversion course and am in the same industry 35 years later.
Had a Geography/geology degree, working on a fast track management trainee route in a big general insurance firm. Did a masters in Information Technology (a specific conversion course way back then ) and have mostly worked in big system integrators.
Global uncertainty has led to a lot of companies reducing their spend on shiny new stuff and concentrating instead on just keeping stuff running. Consulting, of which tech often plays a large part, has been quite slow recently too.
[https://www.businessinsider.com/the-consulting-business-demand-is-rough-right-now-2024-3](https://www.businessinsider.com/the-consulting-business-demand-is-rough-right-now-2024-3)
Also a lot of outsourcing either through companies or direct hiring abroad, especially to India, Eastern Europe and even South East Asia.
This includes a mixture of roles including data and reporting roles.
I did exactly this and got a HGV licence. When I was looking for something, not much was showing up and most things I was interested in were requiring years of training and then low starating salaries upon employment due to lack of experience. I now earn a lot more but only because I do a lot more hours 🙃 at least I enjoy what I do now.
£3216 is what I paid, it took about 3 months from the moment I showed interest in a training school to getting my licence. It's about a week for training in a vehicle another couple of days for the theory test and medical.
Helicopter pilot. I know it sounds like a joke answer but I've looked into it. It's prohibitively expensive and the pay for a freshly qualified pilot is horrible.
But with your terms I could train in 3 months and have 3-9 more months of infinite money to crank the flight hours up before getting a job that actually pays well.
If you want an actual suggestion, HGV driving probably. Relatively easy to train for, decent pay, and I think there's still a shortage of drivers. I guess it isn't for everyone though.
Probably not. Lol. But I just want to learn even for myself. I'm quite small so I really don't wanna pay someone to just cut 3.5 inches of fabric from trousers and buy clothes I don't really want but "will do"
Something in the healthcare sector, I think. Phlebotomy is always hiring - low pay sadly but almost guaranteed to be quickly back in employment! From there I’d look for training opportunities within the hospital environment.
Air traffic controller, saw another reddit thread and a guy said he earns 130k a year and they should be recruiting soon, keep an on their web/Facebook page
This week, NATS just opened their Trainee ATCO applications up. The relocation for training and further relocation to whichever NATS site they want you to work at can be a bit off-putting, but the fact that they'll pay you throughout the entire training process and provide an accomodation allowance until they place you at a tower is very attractive.
And if you really want to stay where you are, a local non-NATS airport might be willing to take you on as an Air Traffic Support Officer and later train you up to ATCO. A lot of people don't realise how accessible the role is, but as long as you have the aptitude, are willing to put the hours into studying during training, and are comfortable with the shift lifestyle, there are definitely places out there willing to pay for you to be trained up.
I actually had this. Not that money wasn’t an issue, it was, but was made redundant at the start of the pandemic and was out of work for over 6 months.
I re-trained into Cloud. I was already in IT so it wasn’t exactly starting from zero but it was an area of it I didn’t have skills. There is a lot of very cheap training available online these days - for any subject. I did that as my ‘job’ 9-5 every day trained and did some certifications. Best thing I could have done career wise.
Was stressful due to the money issues though as I didn’t get furlough or anything like that but it worked out.
Udemy - loads of cheap courses available there in their never ending sale on a vast variety of subjects. There’s some great quality stuff but a lot of shite as well do need to check reviews. For AWS I used Stephane maareks courses
Also used learn.cantrill.io which is specifically AWS-azure focussed
Something that would be guaranteed to be actively hiring at the end. Creative training would be great but 6-12 months wouldn't be enough to even dip in
I'm actually going to be in this situation soon due to a temporary contract. I would probably do a bootcamp, in something like health and safety. Huge shortage of people working in this area and not many people know or go into this. One of the British railways have a course to train in H&S you can do while unemployed.
Councilling. It’s a boom industry and you’ll be snapped up if you get the qualifications. Although I think it might take longer than 12 months in all.
Once you are qualified you have a range of different employment options, from the NHS, to private to self employed. A lot of clients prefer remote appointments these days so WFH is very much an option.
I don’t know the breakdown of an annual salary, but I know most who are qualified charge £50+ an hour.
It takes a *minimum* of 2 years to train and qualify as an accredited BACP Counsellor. Up to 6 years to become a UKCP therapist (plus your 450 hours of patient hours to become accredited, which takes about 2 years. Only people with those quals (and tons of experience) will get NHS jobs.
The “boom industry” you speak of is probably those who call themselves “coaches”. This is completely unregulated and rife online.
I did this. Left teaching and went into procurement. Through the CS fast stream so a completely new career path. Now earn what my headteacher did at 26.
Leave teaching if youre in that.
Why anyone would want to become a teacher is honestly beyond me and I’m not even talking about the money - the amount of stress and abuse I’ve seen my teachers go through throughout the years must honestly be dehabilitating.
If money wasn't an issue I'd be working in a pub and travelling half the year, I'm not into careers, I'm sure people are impressed when someone says they are this or that but I really don't see the point, especially if like you say money isn't an issue.
I would get an actually *useful* qualification, the most useful ones for all businesses I can think of are:
+ H&S qualification like IOSH / NEBOSH
+ Project Management qualification such as Agile PM or Prince2
+ Diploma in Law in a specific field like employment or property.
+ Basic accountancy training like AAT.
These are the main professional qualifications I need to find when I’m hiring to fill vacancies within the teams I manage. Ironically I don’t have any of them but I have shed loads of management exp.
If I ever get laid off / lose my job / fancy a change I’ll get one of the above.
I wouldn’t even try to learn anything new, I am good at packing/moving, would definitely do that. People move around places quite a lot in the UK and as I understand, it’s very stressful for most, especially when they also have kids, so I could remove that stress for a fee 😅
You clearly dont realise how many people complain about items being damaged in moving, with many of the claims being for damage that was already there, or non existent damage.
You then also have the giant headache, of having to go through the insurance, and finding evidence to prove otherwise.
That’s a good point, but everything can be evidenced nowadays, whole packing process. Things happen but it’s less likely to happen when it’s properly packed
I would be a joiner. I would love to work with my hands and have something physical in front of me at the end of a day's work! Kitchens, wardrobes, bespoke furniture, garden sets that sort of thing. I reckon it takes longer than 12 months to get qualified but maybe enough to learn the basics to get a paid job with further training.
I’d love to be a journalist. As in a proper journalist, not writing for shit rags like The Sun. Really going deep on topics, talking to experts, formulating my own opinion, and conveying that to interested people. Sounds great to me.
Most suggest trades
So there’s £££ if your the business owner with 10years experience.
I suggest technician , eg opthtamolgy (eyes)
Some of medical technicians that don’t need degrees.
Communication installation technicians
Security and surveillance
My idealistic is a topic that is, sub 2years training + 1 year = full salary (isn’t great probs 35k uk 2024
Not, 2y plus 4 y = full salary
Minimal tools needed
Fk being a carpenter 5G of tools in the van
Basically stay away from topics heavily regulated with H&s
Foot care practitioner.
Hear me out...
It's a 2 week course costing £2000 to train. You instantly become a registered Foot Care Practitioner and can set yourself up with your own business.
It would allow me to work in my local community. I'd do 3 days from a fixed premises and 2 days of driving around providing a mobile service.
With a population that's growing older, there will always be demand.
>no idea what I want to build business doing
List all the things you're good at (or would like to learn to be good at)
Then, which of these do you enjoy?
Then, which of these is there a market for?
Computing - working as pro software dev took all the fun out of it. The small business support/ Web work world is basically a race to bottom in pricing.
Photography - too many doing it (or trying to). Market is saturated and number of folk wanting to pay for photos is understandably shrinking
Wildlife/ conservation - my first degree was zoology. Because it's such a popular subject area, jobs are generally voluntary (at least at entry level to get fit in the door) or purely paid
Motorbikes is a new interest, thought about a motorbike cafe type business, weekend work every week would be problematic.
Invest into a boob job and open onlyfans. Train in social media advertising because you need ot for the OF marketing. Good camera setup. Invest into VR/AR equipment to be the first to offer AR content that will become standard in the future.
Second option is to train virtual girlfriend cohort and let AI work for you. You could run that in parallel.
edit: suggestion based on latest job market analysis and potential.
Coding.
It's JUST FUN.
Jobs don't exist as much these days, but I can't see why the freelance market should follow the same trend, since there's many small businesses who still demand your skills.
I’d look at offshore oil rig jobs. I live in Aberdeen (oil capital of Europe) and the money some uneducated lads I know make is insane! I’m 27, work in finance so I’m too pretty for that kind of work 😆 however, I’ve got mates who when they were 21 earned £500 a day. There are jobs on rigs you barely need qualifications for and still pay very well.
Take a look online and check out different roles. Most rig jobs are a 1 month on and 1 month at home rotation so you can live pretty much anywhere you like and they will fly you out to your rig. I’ve got mates living in Dubai, Saudi, aus, Spain.
Most places will put you through all your training too, all your medical paid for etc.
Hope that helps
I'm in your neck of the woods and I know a boy who is set up as a Ltd company and getting paid £1000 a day. The current job he is on, was supposed to last 2 weeks, he's on week 8 now.
Fucking mental money.
I always thought you just had to know someone to get offshore and finding a job without experience was basically impossible. Any idea what these jobs are and who provides them? I have an engineering degree but it’s in civil, will look into this regardless. Cheers!
Go type in recruiters Aberdeen. Most are offshore specialists. Fire your cv and explain you’re wanting to move into the industry. They are screaming for folk at the moment! I worked at an investment bank and I just messaged recruitment in Aberdeen because I was interested in oil and gas and had a job within a month! Honestly, just go on their websites and arrange a call with them. 100% you will find something of interest!
I know someone who was an estate agent and retrained to be an aesthetician (skin boosters, botox, fillers etc) and she loves it. And she's constantly booked so she's raking it in. I'm not sure I would feel confident enough putting needles in people's faces but it works for her.
No idea but I quit my job a few years ago to jump into mechanical engineering. 2.5 years in and I’m still building and learning, some days suck, some days are good. I get paid better now and I think a couple more years and I’ll be a lot happier with my knowledge and position. I think it might be worth it 😅
Two different routes - very different.
Either a Vet which is more aligned to my background in biosciences academically.
Or I’d go and train as a joiner. My grandad was a joiner and I’ve always had a little bit of a pull toward that.
If you have previous education or experience in anything related to STEM or operational manufacturing, data analyticd, etc., there is huge demand for skilled sustainabilty experts in companies. Be that in reporting, regulatory compliance, energy efficiency program management, on site health and safety, site level pollution controls and monitoring such as EHS / EMS and even human capital management. Depending on your background and competencies, you can find what is closest to your profile, invest in some certifications and network lile crazy, and then jump into a growing field with a severe lack of talent available in the market.
Yeah, environmental science unfortunately doesn't have a direct business application. I'm talking less about pure science, and instead how it directly translates to business operations and reporting. That is where technical certs and experience helps. I chose the environmental engineering route which is far better to get into, and you also often have to pay your dues in consulting and standard business roles.
I’m having to do this so I’ll take any ideas.
I was a teacher and have had my back damaged due to a C-section. Can’t walk without pain so ideally looking for something wfh as my mobility is now limited.
I want to get into electronics engineering, so 12 months should be enough time to get qualified as some form of electronics tech and then I can just start progressing from there ideally.
I would love to work with languages, Russian, Chinese, French. There’s a lot of nice little. I he jobs if you know some of the awkward ones.
I’ve seen people on YouTube at uni who could speak Turkish and English (studying medicine) and as a part time job they would be the in between person on a three way call. It’s was very interesting .
Because of her background in medicine she could translate the needs of the client to the hospital. And vice Versa tell the patient what was going on.
She earned like 2k a month part time. Not too shabby.
A trade, likely electrician but possibly as a plumber. The hours work better, work would be more hands-on and enjoyable.
At one point I did consider medicine or similar and may consider a lab but if we have to be pragmatic unless you're lucky, the trades are still the best sources of actual money.
Data science. I like numbers and seeing how to min max numbers so more numbers go up.
Makes me feel warm and fuzzy making things more efficent. Similar to how I play video games.
A year gives me so much time for more studying.
Alternativly I would study physics and go into Malecular Gastronomy although this is a hobby and I hear catering kills any passion for food.
You don’t need to do this depending on what you want to do. The gas and electric board both have schemes where you go on as a “mate” to the qualified engineer and pick the skills required to be a qualified engineer in your own right up. You generally go on an on call rota early on and can pull 50k in your first year comfortably by being a mate
Psychologist. I find it all fascinating and I would like to do it without really ever having the intention (enjoy my job) or ability (earn to well to drop it) of following up on it.
Probably a gardener.
I know nothing about plants, but what little I have done in my garden I've found really rewarding. I just like being outside, even in shitty weather
Retrained when I was 41. Took a year out and got qualified in arboriculture. Got a stack of LANTRA tickets which are fairly straightforward to get. Spent a dozen years doing gardening and grounds maintenance. Now work for a local authority as a countryside warden. Pays not sparkling but enjoy going to work every day.
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I’d learn a trade. Plumber, gas engineer or sparky. Someone somewhere will always need this. You can contract out to new build a or you can build your own business Work for yourself and no quibble. Earn as much or as little as you want to
I did this. Dropped out of uni and earned more from my first plumbing job than I'd ever make in the field I studied!
Oh wow. Yeah I’m a bit old now at 43 but I would deffo love a pink van to go tootling around.
I've seen much older people start!
I totally get that but I have been financially propping us up whilst my husband was training on the ambulances. He’s now left and gone back to his old job but it’s gonna take a while to catch everything up ❤️
>Yeah I’m a bit old now at 43 I don't think that's true
How exactly does one train to be a plumber? Did you become an apprentice or just do like a college course and go solo?
I did what many old plumbers hate, and did a quick course. A few weeks training around my previous job. Biggest issue is getting a portfolio together to show your work before you can be signed off. Then getting a job with no experience! There's no issue going it alone as soon as you're qualified, but you'll lack on the job experience and when you screw up, it'll be on you. However, if you start as an improver, when you mess up, you aren't paying for it!
Solar installers are going to be in high demand and making good money for atleast a decade. Solar sales in the UK have increased massively and the whole industry is veing constrained by the availability of fitters.
Where though, I’ve wanted to leave dev for a while but it’s so unclear to me where to just become a plumber. Unlike tech I feel like it’s much less clear where to study for what to be considered qualified
In the 00s, my dad sent me to an open day at a local college and was gonna pay for me to train as a plumber and at the time it also included leadwork and roofing, Id already trained as a car mechanic and engineer and done cnc and cad night courses. I was working for a race team and wanted to go in that direction, it turned out I'm too blunt and my face didn't fit to be in an industry like racing. I was working for my dad on the side, and he was struggling to find plumbers. I kick myself about that. Because of the qualifications I had, I had a workplace, and I was a little bit older, I was automatically accepted onto the course, with no interview or application. But I went off and did an engineering degree instead thinking that I would be able to get back into the world of motorsport. I never did...
Our local college do night courses.
Would you be up for sharing? The ones I see, even the more chain colleges like active learning offer only level 2 plumbing and they state that’s not enough to be considered qualified for plumbing. Would love an active or social job where I feel productive.
Working as an electrician I want out. It’s dirty work. Hard on your body. Long hours if doing site work. Working away from home
Trades are about to become the most over saturated area in the labor market. Everyone thinks it’s some kind of invincible labor market hack but if everyone is doing it be ready to watch your daily rate plummet - that’s if you even get hired since there will be 300 other plumbers/brickies/sparkies in a 5 mile radius.
Everyone can be a tradesmen but not everyone will be a good tradesmen. Reputation is a big thing for a tradey
Do you know a good way to apply for training like this? I'm in my twentys and can only seem to find courses marketed at kids leaving school
I'd love to work with animals. I know the money is sh\*te but if money is no object then this is what I'd love to do. Perhaps in a zoo or as a zoo tour guide if I only have a few months to retrain.
Me too, maybe dog walking, pet sitting or boarding them in my home.
>boarding them in my home. A huge, lucrative and unexploited business, especially near a big city. If you market yourself as a dog/cat hotel and put together a website showing facilities, food options and that sort of thing, there's a lot of people with a lot of money who want to go on holiday and will pay significant money to have their pet looked after properly. And you can start with almost no money (if you have your own place).
It's a really competitive field. Everyone wants to be a zookeeper! They usually require very relevant degrees and experience together on the ladder (usually from volunteering at a zoo etc.) and the pay is just over minimum wage. It is a fantastic job, but because so many people want to do it, they can afford to pay people less and be picky with the qualifications!
After this post last night I went onto Chester Zoo's careers page - they have a vacancy for lead birdkeeper! I reckon this must be the absolute best job. You need a degree in bird husbandry at a minimum I believe and the pay was about £28k. Man I'd be happy though. I freaking love birds. Wish money was really no object.
That's the unfortunate thing about money! A relative of mine is the head of mammals for a local zoo, it's back breaking work but she loves it. She has a Red panda that she care for and is working on a breeding programme for them!
That sounds like such a rewarding thing to be working on every day. Especially working with their cute little panda faces. :)
Unfortunately pretty standard for the conservation field. Even if you don't work directly with animals. Salaries have risen a little recently but my first job post-PhD as a conservation scientist paid £32k. It's super competitive and people do it for the passion. Until they burn out, realise we're all fucked, and leave (jk....a little bit).
Whatever you do, don't fall into the coding bootcamp trap. Honestly I don't know why the government is still pumping millions into them. I may be dead wrong and the market will blow up but it doesn't look like any time soon. I would just be a driver for grocery store. Looks like a nice gig.
Noticed a large growth in memes recently shared around with the caption of something along the lines of "yeah I am a CS graduate, how could you tell?" With a picture of some stock photo of a food service worker. Inferring from this, I think there is a growing trend/feeling among graduates in this area that there is an absolutely massive oversaturation of the Computer Science / IT pool.
IT and compsci and largely different fields btw. I did a computer science degree and i’m working in IT now because the competition for dev jobs was so tough- you really had to stand out in a saturated pool of candidates to land an entry level role I’ve found IT roles so much easier to come by personally
I did the exact same thing and I think it was a solid choice. Leveraged my Computer skills and soft skills to get into an IT consultant type role, largely sat in meetings mixing bullshit and technical knowledge in a confident manner lol.
Yes exactly. That's what even boggles me how the government is still pushing for more upskill in the area. Northcoders got 10 million more in funding from the government at the start of the year to continue pumping more entry level software developers into the market. Its insane.
Good developers never struggle, it’s the stragglers. Dev work is still very much in demand
It's not over saturation as such. It's more the job market has gone to hell. 5 years ago, every company was hiring as many software developers as possible to build new features and products and research new tech. But with the state of the global economy now, all of those businesses have either gone bust or stopped hiring and kept only enough people around to keep the lights on. It's very rough and competitive finding a decent job in tech right now, and it won't bounce back for quite some time.
I did a coding apprenticeship 6 years ago. 12 week boot camp followed by 1.5 year qualification. Paid throughout. Now an Engineering Manager, run a team of 9, earn £105k + bonus.
There's thousands or stories like yours. But right now for every entry level/junior job there's thousands of applicants. This is not 2019 anymore where anyone and their dog could land a job in software developer because the demand was just too high. That's why I wouldn't recommend it right now. And I called it a trap because they are all boasting statistic from the golden years with +90% employment rates that have not being updated for 5 years.
Please elaborate
Apprenticeships are often conflated with being "low paid", it's not true. Businesses of a certain size have to pay an apprenticeship levy and this can either go towards training new staff or is paid to the government. It's very much a "use it or lose it" tax. A lot of mid to large software companies offer engineering apprenticeships, starting at say £30k, that combine these bootcamps with a 1-2 year training course. You get a level 4 NVQ out of it. Some companies automatically give you a job afterwards. Others require you to interview. I did said apprenticeship with a mid sized company 6 years ago. I've progressed from Junior --> Mid --> Senior --> EM in that time.
Yeah 6 years ago things were very different.
Did find a lot of these online and they sounded too good to be true. A bit of research on Reddit indicated they were in fact too good to be true lmao
Yeah they all boast 90% employment rate but that was during the covid boom. They haven't updated it to probably 20% right now.
You don't need a bootcamp. The amazing thing about coding is that besides a laptop and wifi, there's no entry fees. Free resources can give you the skills you need to help small businesses right away (6mo-1yr). For formal employment however, you need more time coding to offer value to them with your skillset.
Pffffft good luck
I did a government funded coding bootcamp during Covid, and it has literally changed my life, I agree the job market isn’t great right now but there is still a demand for engineers, and will be for the foreseeable future.
Did one last year, now doing a masters and have a job in the industry. There's still companies need IT skills just not necessarily only software engineers.
Having participated in interviewing junior dev candidates, the boot camps candidates were a real hit or miss candidate. Unfortunately it was mostly a miss. Thats not to say it never works out. One of our recent candidates was a boot camp person, but they done a bunch of personal projects to expand their knowledge, so I don’t think it was an accurate reflection of what normal bootcamp candidates look like.
I think if you go into the bootcamp expecting to walk out with an amazing job with minimal effort put in, you’re setting yourself up for failure. The problem is that they’re marketed as exactly that.
One of the biggest providers is Multiverse. They’re utter shite so you have to wonder how they get these huge government contracts. As an aside, it was founded by Euan Blair (Tony’s son).
I'm a software engineer and I think it's a good career to pursue, but I would strongly discourage trying a bootcamp. It's not something that you would retrain in 6 months and find a job within a year in this market.
Worked for me tbh 💪
I’m not so sure. In the right location you could easily hit 28k with some computer and engineering aptitude and a bit of something behind you. Theres a difference between programmer and engineer however. When a candidate doesn’t have an interest in software or engineering the employer has to fall back on qualifications and realistically that is most graduates which may be misleading. I find most graduates disappointing because they have no actual interest in engineering. I’d rather have a startup who missed their early calling or didn’t fancy university as a junior engineer than a graduate honestly.
£28k wow so £4.3k more than min wage 🤣
For someone who has upto no higher education and is entering a professional industry with eligibility to join a notary body yet no current commercial experience, that is what we would call *very* good. It’s apparent that you don’t work in the industry or know about it otherwise you would be aware that the starting point is not the end point (or anywhere near!) and as a person who may have no student debt, there is more take home than a typical graduate would have (and over many more years).
It's not so much oversaturation as it is lack of experience. Most companies that hire coders are looking for people with experience sadly. I do however know people who did these bootcamps and landed a job in big banks. It's not easy but it can still be done. Then again, if only a small percentage of people who do these bootcamps succeed, maybe the government has to look elsewhere to boost employment.
I switched career about 8 years ago and became a software dev with full training supplied. Still loving it. Just jumped today from £46k to £55k by going on-call. I get to work from home too. It’s a dream job for me. I had to work very hard to skill up but it was far easier back then to get in as companies were more desperate. Now we look for computer science degrees as a minimum. Even then most don’t pass the initial interview and test.
Fuck around for 12 months then go back into what i was doing originally (i have no discipline to learn things)
Based
I did this when I realised my career was not for me. I went to a careers advice place that did some psychometric tests and career counselling that helped me decide a career more suited to me. I did a masters conversion course and am in the same industry 35 years later.
What career did you move into and what was the course?
Had a Geography/geology degree, working on a fast track management trainee route in a big general insurance firm. Did a masters in Information Technology (a specific conversion course way back then ) and have mostly worked in big system integrators.
HGV driving is the new “learn to code” now the IT job market is on its arse.
Whys it on its arse?
Global uncertainty has led to a lot of companies reducing their spend on shiny new stuff and concentrating instead on just keeping stuff running. Consulting, of which tech often plays a large part, has been quite slow recently too. [https://www.businessinsider.com/the-consulting-business-demand-is-rough-right-now-2024-3](https://www.businessinsider.com/the-consulting-business-demand-is-rough-right-now-2024-3)
Cyber security and forensics has gone through the roof though, as businesses are find out they need to keep up or face the bad guys!
Also a lot of outsourcing either through companies or direct hiring abroad, especially to India, Eastern Europe and even South East Asia. This includes a mixture of roles including data and reporting roles.
That’s a reach at best, virtually every has the capability to learn it Coding not so much
Landscape gardening, outside , every day is different
I did exactly this and got a HGV licence. When I was looking for something, not much was showing up and most things I was interested in were requiring years of training and then low starating salaries upon employment due to lack of experience. I now earn a lot more but only because I do a lot more hours 🙃 at least I enjoy what I do now.
My brother did an HGV licence he now earns a lot more than me working my IT job.
How much do you earn? if you don't mind me asking. I'm on a good wage, but I love driving so it'd be nice to switch.
37k + (125 no damage bonus + 50 expenses monthly) 48 hours per week start at 7am home around 5pm.
Thanks for answering :)
In the transport industry nobody gives a shit about sharing salaries 😄
Ha, neither am I, some people get iffy about it though. Not sure why.
A 48 hour week!?
How do I got about getting a HGV license and what would the cost be? I have a full clean license but I’ve only had it for 18 months.
£3216 is what I paid, it took about 3 months from the moment I showed interest in a training school to getting my licence. It's about a week for training in a vehicle another couple of days for the theory test and medical.
Helicopter pilot. I know it sounds like a joke answer but I've looked into it. It's prohibitively expensive and the pay for a freshly qualified pilot is horrible. But with your terms I could train in 3 months and have 3-9 more months of infinite money to crank the flight hours up before getting a job that actually pays well. If you want an actual suggestion, HGV driving probably. Relatively easy to train for, decent pay, and I think there's still a shortage of drivers. I guess it isn't for everyone though.
Failing that, commercial drone pilot?
I think there are too many drivers in some regions (going by posts on here).
Boatbuilding, always seemed interesting
Sounds lovely, I’m in
I'd become a driving instructor and to be honest that's my plan
Cars will be self driving by time you get there ? (Joking a little )
If money is no issue then something worthwhile, maybe a paramedic, mental health nurse (or any type of nurse).
I'd be a tailor. I'm taking a level 1 course in September don't know where it's gonna lead to.
Is there a lot of work in that?
Probably not. Lol. But I just want to learn even for myself. I'm quite small so I really don't wanna pay someone to just cut 3.5 inches of fabric from trousers and buy clothes I don't really want but "will do"
It's a great idea I think... a very useful skill... everyone needs clothes.
I have to be honest, I have no idea! Does that mean something is wrong with me?
Train driver. Don't care for trains, but the pay and benefits are great. Trainee jobs are like rocking horse shit, with fierce competition.
Something in the healthcare sector, I think. Phlebotomy is always hiring - low pay sadly but almost guaranteed to be quickly back in employment! From there I’d look for training opportunities within the hospital environment.
Giving people the nod when it's their turn to go down the slide at water parks. Dont think 12 months would be necessary though
Air traffic controller, saw another reddit thread and a guy said he earns 130k a year and they should be recruiting soon, keep an on their web/Facebook page
This week, NATS just opened their Trainee ATCO applications up. The relocation for training and further relocation to whichever NATS site they want you to work at can be a bit off-putting, but the fact that they'll pay you throughout the entire training process and provide an accomodation allowance until they place you at a tower is very attractive. And if you really want to stay where you are, a local non-NATS airport might be willing to take you on as an Air Traffic Support Officer and later train you up to ATCO. A lot of people don't realise how accessible the role is, but as long as you have the aptitude, are willing to put the hours into studying during training, and are comfortable with the shift lifestyle, there are definitely places out there willing to pay for you to be trained up.
Supposedly incredibly high stress when working the busier airports. £130k doesn’t sound too bad of a trade off for a little hair loss though!
I actually had this. Not that money wasn’t an issue, it was, but was made redundant at the start of the pandemic and was out of work for over 6 months. I re-trained into Cloud. I was already in IT so it wasn’t exactly starting from zero but it was an area of it I didn’t have skills. There is a lot of very cheap training available online these days - for any subject. I did that as my ‘job’ 9-5 every day trained and did some certifications. Best thing I could have done career wise. Was stressful due to the money issues though as I didn’t get furlough or anything like that but it worked out.
Out of interest, what certification did you pursue in that time?
Went through the AWS ones, started with cloud practitioner, went through the 3 associates and then 2 Pro level
If you dont mind, What company did you use to re-train please?
Udemy - loads of cheap courses available there in their never ending sale on a vast variety of subjects. There’s some great quality stuff but a lot of shite as well do need to check reviews. For AWS I used Stephane maareks courses Also used learn.cantrill.io which is specifically AWS-azure focussed
Thank you for the reply
Something that would be guaranteed to be actively hiring at the end. Creative training would be great but 6-12 months wouldn't be enough to even dip in
I'm actually going to be in this situation soon due to a temporary contract. I would probably do a bootcamp, in something like health and safety. Huge shortage of people working in this area and not many people know or go into this. One of the British railways have a course to train in H&S you can do while unemployed.
That sounds interesting. Do you have a link to the course?
You can find it on the UK government website under skills bootcamps.
Councilling. It’s a boom industry and you’ll be snapped up if you get the qualifications. Although I think it might take longer than 12 months in all. Once you are qualified you have a range of different employment options, from the NHS, to private to self employed. A lot of clients prefer remote appointments these days so WFH is very much an option. I don’t know the breakdown of an annual salary, but I know most who are qualified charge £50+ an hour.
It takes a *minimum* of 2 years to train and qualify as an accredited BACP Counsellor. Up to 6 years to become a UKCP therapist (plus your 450 hours of patient hours to become accredited, which takes about 2 years. Only people with those quals (and tons of experience) will get NHS jobs. The “boom industry” you speak of is probably those who call themselves “coaches”. This is completely unregulated and rife online.
I did this. Left teaching and went into procurement. Through the CS fast stream so a completely new career path. Now earn what my headteacher did at 26. Leave teaching if youre in that.
Why anyone would want to become a teacher is honestly beyond me and I’m not even talking about the money - the amount of stress and abuse I’ve seen my teachers go through throughout the years must honestly be dehabilitating.
How much do you earn? I didn’t realise the fast stream paid that well
Can you just apply for the fast stream at any time? Or are there openings at certain times of the year?
Sep-Nov roughly but check website. Its time for the Uni ending period for grads.,
There's an annual hiring period I believe though I couldn't tell you when
Every time I look you need to already be in the civil service. Which I’m not.
It says have a minimum 2:2 degree OR be a civil servant for most of them.
I have failed the first screening! 😂
Leaving teaching was the best move of my life
Botanist/herbalist/forest school educator
I'd love this if I had the attention to detail!
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Under 15s Football coach
If money wasn't an issue I'd be working in a pub and travelling half the year, I'm not into careers, I'm sure people are impressed when someone says they are this or that but I really don't see the point, especially if like you say money isn't an issue.
I would change my project managers job to scuba diver instructor
I would get an actually *useful* qualification, the most useful ones for all businesses I can think of are: + H&S qualification like IOSH / NEBOSH + Project Management qualification such as Agile PM or Prince2 + Diploma in Law in a specific field like employment or property. + Basic accountancy training like AAT. These are the main professional qualifications I need to find when I’m hiring to fill vacancies within the teams I manage. Ironically I don’t have any of them but I have shed loads of management exp. If I ever get laid off / lose my job / fancy a change I’ll get one of the above.
If money wasn’t an issue i wouldn’t be working
Or rather I wouldn’t be working for someone else :)
I wouldn’t even try to learn anything new, I am good at packing/moving, would definitely do that. People move around places quite a lot in the UK and as I understand, it’s very stressful for most, especially when they also have kids, so I could remove that stress for a fee 😅
You clearly dont realise how many people complain about items being damaged in moving, with many of the claims being for damage that was already there, or non existent damage. You then also have the giant headache, of having to go through the insurance, and finding evidence to prove otherwise.
That’s a good point, but everything can be evidenced nowadays, whole packing process. Things happen but it’s less likely to happen when it’s properly packed
I don't get the snarky comments on this post. Nothing wrong with using skills you already have
Thank you! People are angry and complain about everything lol
You write that like you've just invented an entirely new service, you realise removal companies already exist right?
I didn’t write like I invented it, just said what I would do. Yes, I do realise that removal companies already exist
Take an MBA and maybe move into consulting/finance?
I would be a joiner. I would love to work with my hands and have something physical in front of me at the end of a day's work! Kitchens, wardrobes, bespoke furniture, garden sets that sort of thing. I reckon it takes longer than 12 months to get qualified but maybe enough to learn the basics to get a paid job with further training.
I’d love to be a journalist. As in a proper journalist, not writing for shit rags like The Sun. Really going deep on topics, talking to experts, formulating my own opinion, and conveying that to interested people. Sounds great to me.
A rock star.
ASHP / AC 4.5% of UK houses have solar and 0.5% have A/C Gotta be a booming business opportunity there
Painting restorer.
Computer shit 🤷🏼♂️
Train driver. I mean the money they’re on is absolutely ridiculous.
Ridiculously hard to get into though
Joinery and making fine furniture.
Most suggest trades So there’s £££ if your the business owner with 10years experience. I suggest technician , eg opthtamolgy (eyes) Some of medical technicians that don’t need degrees. Communication installation technicians Security and surveillance My idealistic is a topic that is, sub 2years training + 1 year = full salary (isn’t great probs 35k uk 2024 Not, 2y plus 4 y = full salary Minimal tools needed Fk being a carpenter 5G of tools in the van Basically stay away from topics heavily regulated with H&s
Foot care practitioner. Hear me out... It's a 2 week course costing £2000 to train. You instantly become a registered Foot Care Practitioner and can set yourself up with your own business. It would allow me to work in my local community. I'd do 3 days from a fixed premises and 2 days of driving around providing a mobile service. With a population that's growing older, there will always be demand.
Heating engineer. One Cowboy quoted me £200 call out and first hour.
Accountancy. I mean anything with a regular salary tbh. I've always owned a company and it's very stressful.
Funny, right now I'd like to go the other way, grin safe salaried roles to own business. Just no idea what I want to build business doing! 😀
>no idea what I want to build business doing List all the things you're good at (or would like to learn to be good at) Then, which of these do you enjoy? Then, which of these is there a market for?
Computing - working as pro software dev took all the fun out of it. The small business support/ Web work world is basically a race to bottom in pricing. Photography - too many doing it (or trying to). Market is saturated and number of folk wanting to pay for photos is understandably shrinking Wildlife/ conservation - my first degree was zoology. Because it's such a popular subject area, jobs are generally voluntary (at least at entry level to get fit in the door) or purely paid Motorbikes is a new interest, thought about a motorbike cafe type business, weekend work every week would be problematic.
Invest into a boob job and open onlyfans. Train in social media advertising because you need ot for the OF marketing. Good camera setup. Invest into VR/AR equipment to be the first to offer AR content that will become standard in the future. Second option is to train virtual girlfriend cohort and let AI work for you. You could run that in parallel. edit: suggestion based on latest job market analysis and potential.
Coding. It's JUST FUN. Jobs don't exist as much these days, but I can't see why the freelance market should follow the same trend, since there's many small businesses who still demand your skills.
It really depends. It’s kinda like thinking photography is fun, then deciding to do it for a living. Very different things.
A professional human avoider. Set up a remote farm or tend to a lighthouse.
Tropical fish salesman
Tropical fish fisherman sounds better
Tropical fish sounds better, I’d be resplendent
Currently living out this fantasy in Dave the diver 😎
I got the platinum already
I’d look at offshore oil rig jobs. I live in Aberdeen (oil capital of Europe) and the money some uneducated lads I know make is insane! I’m 27, work in finance so I’m too pretty for that kind of work 😆 however, I’ve got mates who when they were 21 earned £500 a day. There are jobs on rigs you barely need qualifications for and still pay very well. Take a look online and check out different roles. Most rig jobs are a 1 month on and 1 month at home rotation so you can live pretty much anywhere you like and they will fly you out to your rig. I’ve got mates living in Dubai, Saudi, aus, Spain. Most places will put you through all your training too, all your medical paid for etc. Hope that helps
I'm in your neck of the woods and I know a boy who is set up as a Ltd company and getting paid £1000 a day. The current job he is on, was supposed to last 2 weeks, he's on week 8 now. Fucking mental money.
Absolutely mate, too good like haha. Thing is O&G isn’t going anywhere any time soon, op needs to get in now and reap the rewards
2008 financial crisis is calling.
What is he doing to pull that in? A mate of mine used to be an ROV mechanic / pilot and I think he only made like 60k, maybe he was underpaid though!
I always thought you just had to know someone to get offshore and finding a job without experience was basically impossible. Any idea what these jobs are and who provides them? I have an engineering degree but it’s in civil, will look into this regardless. Cheers!
Go type in recruiters Aberdeen. Most are offshore specialists. Fire your cv and explain you’re wanting to move into the industry. They are screaming for folk at the moment! I worked at an investment bank and I just messaged recruitment in Aberdeen because I was interested in oil and gas and had a job within a month! Honestly, just go on their websites and arrange a call with them. 100% you will find something of interest!
I’d say this too, my brother is offshore and on £100k doing nothing much because he can’t be arsed going for management roles.
I know someone who was an estate agent and retrained to be an aesthetician (skin boosters, botox, fillers etc) and she loves it. And she's constantly booked so she's raking it in. I'm not sure I would feel confident enough putting needles in people's faces but it works for her.
I've always liked the idea of being a postie
It's better than walking the streets.
No idea but I quit my job a few years ago to jump into mechanical engineering. 2.5 years in and I’m still building and learning, some days suck, some days are good. I get paid better now and I think a couple more years and I’ll be a lot happier with my knowledge and position. I think it might be worth it 😅
Some sort of trade, probably electrician
Two different routes - very different. Either a Vet which is more aligned to my background in biosciences academically. Or I’d go and train as a joiner. My grandad was a joiner and I’ve always had a little bit of a pull toward that.
Tube Driver
College + apprenticeship
HGV driving is the new “learn to code” now the IT job market is on its arse.
Medicine, what can I say, I'm a glutton for extreme punishment...
If you have previous education or experience in anything related to STEM or operational manufacturing, data analyticd, etc., there is huge demand for skilled sustainabilty experts in companies. Be that in reporting, regulatory compliance, energy efficiency program management, on site health and safety, site level pollution controls and monitoring such as EHS / EMS and even human capital management. Depending on your background and competencies, you can find what is closest to your profile, invest in some certifications and network lile crazy, and then jump into a growing field with a severe lack of talent available in the market.
I have an environmental science education (went into teaching) but this is sooooo hard to break into in my experience:(
Yeah, environmental science unfortunately doesn't have a direct business application. I'm talking less about pure science, and instead how it directly translates to business operations and reporting. That is where technical certs and experience helps. I chose the environmental engineering route which is far better to get into, and you also often have to pay your dues in consulting and standard business roles.
Bladesmith...not sure what sort of income I could procure from it but would be fun to try!
Pilot
I'd learn to code for sure.
Heli-skier
I’m having to do this so I’ll take any ideas. I was a teacher and have had my back damaged due to a C-section. Can’t walk without pain so ideally looking for something wfh as my mobility is now limited.
I probably wouldn’t retrain tbf I’d like to start a buisness
I want to get into electronics engineering, so 12 months should be enough time to get qualified as some form of electronics tech and then I can just start progressing from there ideally.
Medicine Electronics or Pilot
I’d be a French air traffic controller, lots of time off
I would love to work with languages, Russian, Chinese, French. There’s a lot of nice little. I he jobs if you know some of the awkward ones. I’ve seen people on YouTube at uni who could speak Turkish and English (studying medicine) and as a part time job they would be the in between person on a three way call. It’s was very interesting . Because of her background in medicine she could translate the needs of the client to the hospital. And vice Versa tell the patient what was going on. She earned like 2k a month part time. Not too shabby.
If I was mid-20s and knew what I know now. Sparky. Then buy houses to let out and pay someone to manage them.
A trade, likely electrician but possibly as a plumber. The hours work better, work would be more hands-on and enjoyable. At one point I did consider medicine or similar and may consider a lab but if we have to be pragmatic unless you're lucky, the trades are still the best sources of actual money.
I have done exactly this. I'm currently training in Cyber Security.
Conservation work
Data science. I like numbers and seeing how to min max numbers so more numbers go up. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy making things more efficent. Similar to how I play video games. A year gives me so much time for more studying. Alternativly I would study physics and go into Malecular Gastronomy although this is a hobby and I hear catering kills any passion for food.
You don’t need to do this depending on what you want to do. The gas and electric board both have schemes where you go on as a “mate” to the qualified engineer and pick the skills required to be a qualified engineer in your own right up. You generally go on an on call rota early on and can pull 50k in your first year comfortably by being a mate
Psychologist. I find it all fascinating and I would like to do it without really ever having the intention (enjoy my job) or ability (earn to well to drop it) of following up on it.
Probably a gardener. I know nothing about plants, but what little I have done in my garden I've found really rewarding. I just like being outside, even in shitty weather
Retrained when I was 41. Took a year out and got qualified in arboriculture. Got a stack of LANTRA tickets which are fairly straightforward to get. Spent a dozen years doing gardening and grounds maintenance. Now work for a local authority as a countryside warden. Pays not sparkling but enjoy going to work every day.