Unemployed, looking for the next step in my work life.

Got2Save

Hey everyone. New to the board and am looking for advice on my work situation. I am currently unemployed and have been since the end of last month. I was working with a friend of the family in construction as a general hand/labourer i guess was my job title. The money was pretty good, but the work was way too strenuous and i injured my lower back and have been getting that fixed. It wasn't a major injury, just a slipped disc.

I no longer want to work in construction, and instead would like to move into another industry. The one problem is i have no prior experience in any other area of work apart from low skilled work, so are my options very limited? I do not have any other qualifications barring gcses and even those i only achieved a c grade in english, the rest were d grades or e grades.

I have been looking at jobsites and careers sites, but nothing catches my eye. Having said that i do have an interest in the healthcare sector and working for the NHS or a healthcare profession where i could create my own business instead of working in a hospital. Apart from healthcare there is not much else i have an interest in. I have been looking into web design and teaching myself how to graphic design because i am a useful drawer, but that's about it. Sorry if i am a bit vague because there isn't much to go on because i am not sure myself.

HappyMJ

I tried web design. There's isn't much money in it.

Think about it. You could charge £1,200 for a few days worth of work setting up and hosting a 10 page web site then offer ongoing support for 1 year with 2 page changes each week paid in 12 monthly instalments of £100. It's hardly worth the effort. After 39 weeks (if you're lucky enough to find a new customer each week) you'll find all you are doing is updating customer web pages and not adding any new customers. After the 12 month contract has finished you won't be able to charge £100 a month any more and will probably drop that to £50 to keep them as a customer.

It's now very easy for customers to create and update their own web sites that outsourcing this task to someone else isn't really worth it any more.

If you can't work due to injury make sure you are at least claiming Employment and Support Allowance.

SomeRandomGuy

HappyMJ wrote: »

I tried web design. There's isn't much money in it.

Think about it. You could charge £1,200 for a few days worth of work setting up and hosting a 10 page web site then offer ongoing support for 1 year with 2 page changes each week paid in 12 monthly instalments of £100. It's hardly worth the effort. After 39 weeks (if you're lucky enough to find a new customer each week) you'll find all you are doing is updating customer web pages and not adding any new customers. After the 12 month contract has finished you won't be able to charge £100 a month any more and will probably drop that to £50 to keep them as a customer.

It's now very easy for customers to create and update their own web sites that outsourcing this task to someone else isn't really worth it any more.

If you can't work due to injury make sure you are at least claiming Employment and Support Allowance.

I agree with this, having studied CS for a while at university I don't think there is a lot of money in web design unless you are going to get properly qualified (i.e. experienced in numerous development languages and tools) and then become a junior web developer with a major company.

For basic websites that the average sole trader or SME might want there are way too many free templates and extremely cheap services out there that will throw up a site for a couple of hundred quid in hours.

What healthcare roles interest you? Are you in a position to go back to college and perhaps study and Access course and then do a degree in Nursing, Physiotherapy or something?
Alternatively health care assistant or carer jobs could be a foot in the door.

If you have construction experience would training for a move sideways to a less physical role like electrician or plumber be an option?