Which Career?

Linus2864

stphnstevey wrote: »

PILOT
Think would enjoy, but not a business and salary reaches a ceiling

As other posters have suggested, you may want to strike this off your list as it is currently very difficult to find a commercial pilot job.

Firstly, you need to have a Class 1 medical certificate - if you don't meet the standard, then it's a no go.

Hardly any UK airlines are hiring cadets any more. The bigger ones tend to recruit from Flight Training Organisations who require you to pay out a lot of money (£100k ish) to achieve your PPL, CPL/IR, ATPL and Type Rating with no guarantee of a job at the end.

British Airways are recruiting new pilots at the moment, but it is very very competitive and you will need to provide funding in advance - some of it will be returned if you drop out or fail.

The self sponsored route is also expensive and you will need to work for peanuts (or for free) to build your hours once you have passed your ATPL exams.

And to cap it all, you will be competing against thousands of other qualified pilots for very few jobs.

I think many of your other options may be as difficult. Whatever you decide, hope it turns out well!

stphnstevey

Thanks for all the replies and advice

I understand the surprise by some that I am not going for a job that I utimately enjoy over salary. I would, but however I have not been able to find this mythical beast that is enjoyable and is still supports a comfortable lifestyle.

Therefore I have made what I see the logical conclusion: that if I have to do a job I don't enjoy, I may as well get well paid and enjoy life with the money

I would love to work with animals, like my wife does. But there are hardly any animal jobs (bar Vet) that pay a reasonable salary. So 10k/yr would mean we would have to give up very basic luxuries like car, house, holiday etc etc

I have tried to look for jobs that are both enjoyable and pay well- but so far have only come up with Pilot, Doctor and Vet - and there are obvious training issues to getting those positions

I am happy to take job ideas from those that call me 'selfish and money grabbing', but fear that it very easy to criticise without actually coming up with any other ideas. People have already said on here I would love to do 'xyz' if only it paid 'xyz' more. Which is a conundrum 99% of us find ourselves in.

Back to specific jobs

VET - I have a 2 science A Levels (Chem and Bio) and Maths A level, but not at 'A' grade - All B grade. But I do have a Science BSc, but however I take your point, compitition is fierce and without the grades is unlikely at my age

DOCTOR - I work with doctors and know most with some experience are just over the £100k mark. This can be doubled in the USA if specialise, but all this is talking huge amounts of time and money.

PILOT- this has just been a fantasy, spawned from taking flights twice a week. I have no experience what so ever and openly admit I haven't done my research in this area. I would however be extremely greatfull for any advice on this area, even if just to be able to cross it off my list

Sales-I dabbled in and got burned, don't think I would be particularly good at. I can bulid up good customer relationships, as I do in my job, but the next step selling is not my strong point

Hiccups_2

I understand the surprise by some that I am not going for a job that I utimately enjoy over salary. I would, but however I have not been able to find this mythical beast that is enjoyable and is still supports a comfortable lifestyle.

Therefore I have made what I see the logical conclusion: that if I have to do a job I don't enjoy, I may as well get well paid and enjoy life with the money

I don't think anyone's knocking you for wanting a well paid job, but we're just pointing out that the reality is there is always a huge variation in salaries across all professions depending on how successful you are and very few people receive the top salaries.

DOCTOR - I work with doctors and know most with some experience are just over the £100k mark.

I'm sure that's not right, firstly how do you know people are being honest with you about how much they earn and secondly you work with presumably successful doctors (the kind who get involved in conducting clinical trials).

I am happy to take job ideas from those that call me 'selfish and money grabbing', but fear that it very easy to criticise without actually coming up with any other ideas. People have already said on here I would love to do 'xyz' if only it paid 'xyz' more. Which is a conundrum 99% of us find ourselves in.

Only a couple of people on this thread insinuated that you were selfish and money grabbing, the rest IMO were just pointing out that you might not necessarily end up with a higher salary if you pursued a career change in any of the professions that you've listed. So the net result would be that you could end up wasting time and money on re-training and having to accept a lower salary only to find that, in ten years time, you're in exactly the same position that you're in now.

Hiccups_2

After some quick googling, this is what the NHS says about doctors' pay this year:

Pay for doctors

This page describes the pay for doctors from 1st April 2011.

Doctors in training



Doctors in training earn a basic salary and will be paid a supplement if they work more than 40 hours and/or work outside the hours of 7am-7pm Monday to Friday.

In the most junior hospital trainee post (Foundation Year 1) the basic starting salary is £22,412. This increases in Foundation Year 2 to £27,798. For a doctor in specialist training the basic starting salary is £29,705. If the doctor is contracted to work more than 40 hours and/or to work outside 7am-7pm Monday to Friday, they will receive an additional supplement which will normally be between 20% and 50% of basic salary. This supplement is based on the extra hours worked above a 40 hour standard working week and the intensity of the work.




Specialty doctor and associate specialist (2008) (SAS doctors)



Doctors in the new specialty doctor grade earn between £36,807 and £70,126. See www.nhsemployers.org/sas for more details.



Consultants



Consultants can earn a basic salary of between £74,504 and £100,446 per year, dependent on length of service. Local and national clinical excellence awards may be awarded subject to meeting the necessary criteria.

General practitioners

Many general practitioners (GPs) are self employed and hold contracts, either on their own or as part of a partnership, with their local primary care trust (PCT). The profit of GPs varies according to the services they provide for their patients and the way they choose to provide these services.

Salaried GPs employed directly by PCTs earn between £53,781 to £81,158, dependent on, among other factors, length of service and experience.

As you can see for most doctors (towards the end of their career) their (top) pay is around £70,000 to £80,000.

Only the consultant doctors, i.e. the very best in their field, are paid higher than this and even this would be dependent on experience with the highest salaries being earnt towards the end of their careers.

It turns out that my original figure of £50,000 for a trainee doctor was out by a huge margin; which in reality turns out to be less than £30,000. My estimate was based on "average" salaries that were self reported on website several years ago, which just goes to show how much people exaggerate their salaries.

The NHS doctors' salaries information that I've quoted above can be found here:

www nhscareers nhs uk/details/Default aspx?Id=553

(Just replace the spaces with dots)

Good luck with whatever you decide to do but as they say sometimes people don't notice the flowers at their feet when they're too busy looking at the stars.

Person_one

If you go to medical school it will be a long long time before you're actually able to really enjoy your money. Medical school is intense and time consuming and as a newly qualified junior doctor you'll be shuffled around, work crazy shifts and be on call regularly. Even if you decide to go the more 'life friendly' GP route it will be many years before you're back to 9-5 and weekends free.

hjsmum

Do you already have a degree? If so, some universities offer Graduate Entry Medicine (GEM) courses. It knocks either a year or two years off the length of the course (can't remember which). However, you would have to be dedicated. I don't think 'doing it for the money' quite covers it.

nlj1520

I am facing a crossroads in my life.....I feel my current main source of work is now intolerable following a disagreement and I feel I have to leave that customer on monday.
This leaves me on the philosophical side trying to work out what I want to do with my life and on the economic side with the need to find income in the short term.
At the moment I am leaning towards trying to get work that will actually pay very poorly but give me more satisfaction...........I'm thinking of going to try to get a job as an LSA in an autistic unit. I have 15 years relevant experience bringing up my son until he went to a residential school and I have had a niggling feeling for some years that it is a pity for all that experience and knowledge to go to waste............
It's going to mean some time unemployed I am sure ( I can manage a short time), and a fairly major adjustment in life style, but (assuming I can get a job in that area) soon I will be too old for it....it can be tough and very challenging and i am in my early 50s so soon I will be too infirm to be any use in that field in a practical way.
Having enough money is important but having loads just doesn't matter to me. We are all different but has the OP considered that although the things he would have to give up give him pleasure, doing something he considers really worthwhile (whatever that is to him) might more than compensate for them?

weelizzie_2

I'm not really sure what you're looking for and it seems the jobs you mention don't seem to offer a great increase in salary without years of expensive training.

I wondered if you have thought about other ways of increasing your income, perhaps through investment, or moving up in your current field - have you reached a salary ceiling there?

It seems the best option might be to train as a doctor and then move to the US, but only if you can stomach the training and upheaval. Personally I wouldn't bank on the US healthcare sector remaining the same for the next twenty years, but I expect you will know more about this than I do.

Seems to me that the main options for making a lot of money without too much training/aptitude are:
1. job in finance
2. luck with the property market
3. crime

Without wanting to impose my own (hair shirt socialist:D) opinions, I also think you should also consider the evidence on how individuals experience increases in salary and how far it really changes their lives above a certain level. How much do you want to earn? What do you want to do with all that extra cash? Work less and have more time for fun? Most highly paid jobs require huge time commitment. If you a working towards a dream purchase (property, yacht, Ferrari etc ), is there any way you could combine that with a job?

Good luck!

RosaBernicia

Graduate medical entry is 4 years, foundation training 2, training to consultant level at least another 4. Foundation and specialty training require rotations which may not be in the same town, plus the applications are national so you would need to be flexible about potentially moving across the UK. It's competitive and involves mad hours at every stage.

Clinical excellence awards for consultants (which contribute to salaries beyond the basic) are being reviewed and likely to be time limited rather than awarded once and maintained - since it has been noticed that people who were outstanding in their field one year are not necessarily so throughout the next 20-30 years.

I think your experience is probably with professor level consultants involved in research and not a picture across the field.

I would also suggest that you research your information on US medics salaries, since I suspect these are hugely skewed by a small number of very successful plastic surgeons.

Have you considered biomedical research work? If you already have a science degree then you could look at a one year masters and move into pharmaceutical labs. Your research management experience could also be valuable here and pharma salaries are higher than in the public sector. (Am restraining myself from further comments on big pharma since I am another hair shirt socialist )

Rosa xx

Mind_the_Gap

You might find that the extra time released by working part time at your current job (say 0.7 or 0.8) is worth the proportional drop in salary as it would free you up to pursue another interest/passion one day per week.

I think you are chasing after a mythical Holy Grail as far as retraining and finding another well-paid job is concerned.