Career advice please!

OK, I need to pick a direction for my life.

I'm about 30, university educated in Medical Genetics and now Chemistry. I have had jobs as a check-out chick, a secretary/PA, an office worker. I am very good at these and have a very high typing speed. I'm also a good supervisor/trainer. I suck at teaching, so please don't suggest that, I've pretty much closed that door all by myself, although am desperately trying to wedge it open.

I want a job that's either in school term time OR that lets me work 2-3 days a week OR that lets me work from home some of the time.

My hobbies include reading, the aetiology of the English language, cooking, sewing, knitting, fantasy RPGs, BellyBelly. And obviously I like sciencey stuff too, particularly the sub-molecular branches.

The job also has to pay quite well, as we need me on a decent salary to buy a decent house.

Any ideas?

sorry I don't have any advice, just hate not seeing a reply!
How about writing? Script writing, novel writing, blog writing... :dunno:

Ummm, magician? That would be fun... Don't know about the hours though.

A sciencey-job in a university? As a research assistant or whatever. The money is pretty good, the hours are very flexible, and the working conditions are great.
My DH is an academic, and we moved to this town for his job, so a lot of our friends are uni-based and this is what they do. Some do shifted work weeks, where they work Tues-Sat, some do really early days, like 7-3, some do four day 40 hour weeks, and some are part time. It seems to be very kid-friendly.

You say you don't want teaching, but you also say you are good at training. Have you thought about adult education/training? Teaching adults is different to teaching children so maybe you could look at doing something in that area. In Australia, we have TAFE colleges for adult education, do you have anything like that over there? You could do job training for people to get them back into the workforce etc.

Medical Researcher/Scientist. If your pedantic then that's a plus :) My sister did a genetic counselling degree and now works in breast cancer research. I did psychology and worked in sleep research, so it's pretty flexible. Basically, if you've got a science degree - apply. Decent wage (casual was around 25-30 an hour for lowest rung as I was just out of uni, I think the ceiling might be somewhere around 70,000?) daytime hours, and a lot of ppl job share. It's a good mix of paperwork and people work, although if you work in a hospital then you gotta deal with Dr's (and their ego's).

What about something in the health sector eg nursing, researcher? It's so hard trying to pick a career path.

i was going to suggest a job within a uni as well. i've worked at one before & thought they were very family-friendly & flexible regarding work/life balance and hours. not sure about in the uk, but here they tend to have great benefits with regards to pension schemes & holidays that balance out wages that tend to be lower than the private sector.

Not sure of the UK equivalent but perhaps in a more administrative role in a school so burser or something like that. Rather than a teacher are there lab assistants positions in the senior schools/unis - so involved in preparation of experiments etc but not directly responsible for the lessons and students???
Medical typing - perhaps there is scope to do that from home even?
It is really hard trying to get hours to suit and manage the $$. Good Luck!

surely with your science degree you could get into lab assistant work

Try the universities or hospitals or research institute for part time lab work and see whats around.

Thanks for all the suggestions, ladies.

I do need a job that pays quite well, and sadly the UK doesn't value scientists and people in further education as much as Australia obviously does! Very few school jobs pay well if you're not a teacher too. It sucks! (If I taught just at college then I'd not be eligable to teach in a school, but would only get about £15-16k. Lab assistant in a uni, I'd be on about £14k pa, full-time - including working in the Uni holidays. Teaching assistant, £10-14k pa depending on how specialised you are.)

I have applied for a PA job that's full-time, but £24-27k a year: I'm hoping that I can do that for a year and get a mortgage on it, then maybe sort out something that pays less but is school-time only, like science prep staff or teaching assistant. That's about £10-14k over here. I need to be on more than £20k.

Hospital lab work is band 4-7: band 7 starts at £20k, but that's the head of the lab.

To be a genetic counsellor I need another two-year degree for which I will receive no funding, also it's a job I have said I would refuse to do until I've finished my family. Last thing a childless couple/couple who are considering termination for severe genetic illness need is a blooming radiant pg woman talking to them about it. But if a job came up locally I wouldn't turn it down!

I'd like to be paid well to write: guess I'll have to knock out a novel in my spare time!