Thread: late in life career change - have you considered it?

My career change will be moving into retirement.......

Anyway,good on them,all Tradies are in huge demand,and as the older ones retire,things are only going to get worse.

I took redundancy at age 55. Finished Friday arvo as a Principal Technical Officer in international telecommunications and started my new job on Monday morning as a trainee signaller on the railways so I could work in a signal box controlling trains.

After qualifying as a signaller, I did that for 8 years then retired.

Yes.

I changed careers from 20 years in Telecommunications marketing ( Telstra) to a Brewer ( beer) when I was 49.

Took a 50% pay cut but much happier and now I’m a brewing consultant selling brewing equipment and help new small breweries start up.

Am now going to ramp up attending woodworking evening classes once per week so I can test my next career possible change to a furniture maker as we’re doing a tree change in 2 months and I’ll have a nice big shed to play in 😊.

I'm struggling to see why anyone over the age of 50 (or 12 for that matter) would need any form of training to be a plumber.

I enquired about an electrician apprenticeship at around 50. Always understood electrickery at a domestic level. We decided we couldn't take the financial hit at the time, but I still wonder. Sparkies make a motza, at least compared to long distance truckies. I especially wonder now, alone, as I contemplate going out to refit axles to my D2 at 70.....

My son started his working career as an apprentice roof plumber... Perfect training for his next career choice, an Infantry soldier, in two war zones.... Which was great for the next choice, a removalist with some tipper driving thrown in. This led to him rejoining the Army to be trained as a fitter/armourer, or "gun plumber", so full circle.... But, now he's a fitter/turner working in maintenance on a big project so maybe he'll settle down. Not sure, as I had many, many different jobs over the years. Never found one that stuck.

Hi
I started as a cine photographer, 16mm for TV, 35mm for news reels (remember them?)
That didn't last too long
Joined the RAAF for 6 years at 18 to avoid conscription.
Demobbed, worked for Tas Uni as a photographer .
By this stage 1" tape was replacing film and beta max and VHS soon replaced that.
Then digital replaced both film and cine.
By about 1986 computers were replacing dark rooms, so off to night school for a few years to avoid redundancy.
Phone cameras replaced the need for photographers and screen based published papers replaced hard copy prints. So what to do?
Night school had given me more computer skills than most of the staff using them, so I started supporting and trouble shooting which ended up as a full time job for my last 8 years till retirement.
Yep, ended up in a job that did not exist when I left school .

Cheers

Nearly every week I think about a career change before I get too old, what next is the big question.