How to retrain and change profession after 30: English experience

A long successful career is no reason to hold on to a job if you want change. The Telegraph told the stories of people who took the risk of retraining and changing professions when they were deep in their 30s

Lack of change, work routine can break even successful managers. In June 2019, British coaching company Rutbusters conducted a survey among 1 managers and professionals, finding that 14% of them are so stuck in a routine that they already hate what they do. Most often, IT and telecommunications managers feel themselves in a professional impasse – 28% of respondents.

Broadcast across the UK, over a million mid- and senior-level employees are dissatisfied with their careers and are desperate for change. The logical solution would be retraining for some new specialty and a radical change in profession, but the older a person becomes, the more terrible it is to start from scratch. The Telegraph has collected several cases of how well-established British people change their field of activity and what comes of it.

In his early 30s, Hamish Shepard had a solid banking career, trading derivatives at UBS. When he got tired of it, he ventured into the consumer sector and applied for an internship position at Vita Coco, a coconut milk-based beverage company. Shepard was not accepted there, but he managed to get a job at Popchips, which makes potato chips. Then it was still a startup, but now it is a large concern with revenues of more than $100 million a year. After Popchips, Shepard founded the online retailer Lazada (which was soon bought out by Alibaba), then took part in the creation of food delivery company HelloFresh, and finally launched the Bridebook wedding planning application, which is now a leader in Britain. “A career is like traveling: you don’t have to know where you’re going, it’s just a matter of knowing the direction,” Shepard says.

By the age of 34, Gareth Hughes was an RAF pilot when he decided he had had enough: endless training and sorties took away the strength and time he wanted to spend with his daughters. The family needs something to feed, and he franchised a small consulting firm, working from home. The army taught him how to mentor people and withstand pressure, which helped him start his business. Now Hughes’ diary is full of new tasks and orders.

Annabelle Vesey worked as an office manager in clinics for many years, so when she went on maternity leave, she did not want to lose her skills, but at the same time she aspired to something new. At the age of 35, she created a remote office management service for doctors, initially doubting the success of the enterprise. A few years later, she had five employees under her supervision, and among her clients even several doctors from Harley Street, the elite of British medicine.

Financier Philip Turner worked in the City of London and was convinced that it was too late to change something. However, in 2012, when a small country pub in his native Suffolk went up for sale, he bought it out of sheer whim, not even thinking about becoming a bartender. The task was simply to restore it and resell it. But when repairs began to cost incredible money, Turner decided to take matters into his own hands. He was so fascinated by this that he quit his job at the bank and now owns a whole chain of taverns where you can drink and sleep, which have received numerous awards in the field of travel business. The businessman is sure that the financial and organizational skills acquired in the City helped him build his business. “My advice to everyone is to capitalize on your skills. 20 years of work is a bank of experience, you just need to be able to manage it,” says Turner.

Alison Stables was a City lawyer when she realized that at 43, she didn’t have the time to raise her two sons, and probably never would. Stables took the risk of retraining as a teacher and did not fail: after ten years she is working as a teacher at the Royal School of Chester, one of the most prestigious private schools for girls in the country.

Founded in 1982, Melissa Richardson’s modeling agency fell into decline in the new century, and in 2009 she had to close it. By that time, Richardson was already 55 years old, so, not really hoping for anything, she fulfilled her old dream and opened a small flower business. Unexpectedly, her skills as a modeling agency manager came in handy here, and now she has 30 florists under her supervision and her company arranges the entrance to the Chelsea Flower Show, one of the oldest and most famous in the world.

Sometimes a change of activity after several stages returns a person back to the origins, but in a new capacity. For more than 30 years, Phil Boger worked as a sound engineer, and when he got tired of it, he founded a company for cleaning drainpipes. Business took off, Bodger sold it and returned to the studio: his new company produces podcasts, collaborates with the BBC and The Guardian.

Finally, it also happens that an accomplished person changes the field of activity repeatedly. This happened to Virge Bisset: for a long time she was engaged in organizational issues in the theater, but when she was already over 40, she went to study as a specialist in preschool education. Much later, Bisset changed her profession again, founding the Lemonwedge Film Club – courses for schoolchildren in directing, screenwriting and television journalism.