If you were to re-skill/re-train at this point in your life, what would you do and why?

18 comments

1. Lock smith. Always work and it’s clean and expensive

2. I spent a summer in Australia working and all I did was put up fences all day, and it was the most rewarding job I’ve ever had.

3. I am a support worker and (tooting my own horn) an above average cake decorator. I can’t wait to stop doing both to utilise the structural engineering skills I have had this whole time!

4. Train Driver – see the country, free travel, strong union.

5. I’d like to be a luthier and spend my day making electric guitars.

   I have zero skill at woodworking. It would be a disaster.

6. If you choose to do more manual intensive jobs, it will get harder as you age.

7. Couch tester

8. I’d quite like to work in an NHS laboratory I think, biomedical scientist, I believe? I’d love to retrain to do something medical. I don’t mind long shifts. I’m quite detail orientated but don’t mind repetitive work. I’d like to do something helpful for other people but without working directly with the public, and I’ve heard that the NHS always needs lab staff.

9. Shooting and editing videos. It’s such a zen hobby. You can get really lost just filming and editing stuff, and stitching it together to create a hopefully beautiful video.

   To OP: assuming you don’t have complicating factors like dependents, or have dependents but have a healthy cash cushion, I’d go for it.

10. I’m an OK hobby programmer so probably put in the effort to get good enough at that to make a living from it.

    Current tough times in that industry notwithstanding, programming is quite rewarding, you have tangible things to create or fix and can see the result of your efforts when you do it.

11. I’d love to retrain as a butcher tbh, bit of a hobby at home but I think had it been an option when I was younger I’d have certainly liked to have done it.

12. Adventurer and collector of ancient antiquities. I’d have a Fedora hat and a whip.

    So many adventures

13. The whole AI is going to take all of our jobs is just utter hysteria. It won’t. Some jobs will be made redundant, but chances are those are low-skill, boring, repetitive jobs anyway.

    That aside, could you handle being on apprenticeship wages? Because that would probably be your best bet to learn a trade. If I was going into the trades, I would probably go for plumbing or electrical work. Still hard on the body compared to sitting on a chair, but not as hard as other trades I don’t think.

    If I was to re-skill/re-train, I would probably have gone much harder on learning data science. I am an economist, so a very handy starting point to pivot into DS if I decide to do so as I know things like regression analysis, probability, distributions etc, but it would be much easier to pick up new skills like coding languages had I done so in life.

14. I’ve currently work in finance. I had thoughts recently about training to be a lactation consultant or NCT breastfeeding counsellor or some such. My breastfeeding journey with my daughter was amazing and I would love to be able to help other people with it.

15. Plumbers rake in shed loads of money for doing half arse botch jobs…. Do it. Just so you know, after my plumber experience, I’m never having another in the house.

    I’d retrain in animal care. Now THAT’s rewarding.

16. Are you already pretty proficient at plumbing on a DIY basis?

17. I’m almost 49, quit a stressful, reasonably well paid office job when I was 40 (I call that my mid life crisis) I now work part time at the theatre (bartending, concessions, coffee, cookies etc) tips are great ($150-$400 per show) however it’s only part time/seasonal and I’m really not a people person. Customers can be a real pain in the ass sometimes, and I can’t see myself doing this forever. I’d rather be working in solitude or a much smaller group of people, without a boss breathing down my neck every 5 minutes(like the office job I had) and pulling all-nighters to complete almost impossibly tight deadlines. This is fine when you’re 25, but in your 50s it can take its toll on your health.
    I’m probably going to have to retrain in something shortly, however I haven’t figured out what yet.

18. Some kind of professional taster/tester

    Seems kind of an absurdity, but someone has to do it!

    Whisky ( and other spirits) would be a preference. Or crisps.

    Humans apparently do dog food tasting too, don’t fancy that