UKH

I've never worked in an office. I've used computers but most jobs I've had have been manual or customer based. It seems clear that most employment is becoming net based. I want to remain employed for a while yet. But I don't want to train for years. Is there any kind of course I can learn in 6 weeks or so that can lead to gainful employment? Or stretching to 6 months. 

Factories, warehouses, most recently taxi driving. 

Stick to taxi driving but swap to a camper van?

Lots of opportunities in software development and data analysis roles and lots of bootcamp style courses to get you skilled up in a few months. Depends whether that stuff is your cup of tea, obviously, but I shared a course with lots of people with essentially zero prior experience and most of them took to it really well and had success finding jobs.

Not being "funny" but...your OP doesn't state whether you want to stop working in manual / customer-based (I assume "customer facing") jobs such as factories, warehouses and taxi driving. Do you?

No. I just want paid employment of any kind and I'm trying to broaden my opportunities. 

Ah, that makes it nice and clear. Thanks for your patience. 

I gave up taxi driving coz lockdown made it financially unviable

I often need that to deal with your replies😅😁😀😂

Our neighbour works from home(NE Scotland) for a US travel agent so the worlds your oyster I guess.

Did lots of those people have razor sharp trimmed beards and rose tattoos on one of their hands? 

I think those must come later!

Are you any good at selling? A mate of mine to supliment his income does some freelance selling. Basically a combination of door knocking and cold calling factories and punts our blower and vacuum pumps to them. 

I supply them to him at cost along with technical advice to make sure it's the right product for the right application and we split the profit 50/50.

Happy to talk if you want to try something similar. 

I know a lot of people that started out in Corporates at a ground level (ie contact centre or low level back office admin) and by gaining knowledge of the company /doing courses then have got to a reasonable senior level. The downside of corporates is that they are always looking to downsize or move stuff offshore. However working for one gives you transferable skills. Unfortunately it may mean sticking a contact centre roll for a while.

Perhaps, get your TEFL qualification and do online English tutoring. There are several companies to look at. 

What was that course? That stuff does interest me and, while I am 'comfortably' employed with a long-standing employer, the thought of doing my current job for another 10+ years is unfamothable and makes me consider lottery tickets.

I did mine with Northcoders and I can't recommend them enough. The learning experience was great and I walked straight into a good job at a good salary. It's not a cheap course, and it's gone up noticeably since I signed up, but I think as a price for a career change into a reasonably well-paid profession, it stacks up. And it seems to be really well-regarded by employers which is crucial.

Based in Manchester or Leeds but they obviously have remote options now too. The number of tutors they have available also goes a long way towards justifying the cost, and I'd be surprised if they don't do a good job of the remote aspects.

I was in a similar position. Secure job that was making me unhappy. No regrets about taking the leap.

As a statistician reading about people getting skilled up in data analysis in a boot camp for a few months makes me wonder what is meant by data analysis.

If you are looking for something new, possibly look into leak inspection for water companies. They will take you on and train you with no previous experience. A person I know, got doing it in rural area and he loved it, he said it was outside and bit like being a detective sussing out where the link is. Working conditions seemed OK and work pattern seemed flexible.

Can't speak to the data analysis side of things because mine was software development. But my experience is that the few months of learning was enough to:

a) prove to employers that you're capable of learning this stuff quickly

b) build enough of a foundation (and confidence) to structure more learning off

c) give you enough knowledge and skills to be bordering on actually useful

With c) possibly being the least important of the three. It's getting people started in a career that's all about continuous learning regardless of your starting point anyway, not pretending that you can create a fully formed professional in a few months.

Hi, I guess for producing simple summaries of data and presenting as dynamic graphs etc that is ok but data analysis beyond that  relies on a good background in mathematics, some thing few very companies seem willing to provide time or training for these days. You might be very lucky and find a job where you can also enroll in education (open university etc.) to learn that along side doing your job.

I'll look into that. 

Definitely not. But thanks for the offer. 

I like the sound of that, I'm going to investigate further. 

I think this is a bit of an illusion - some professions lend themselves to homeworking but even in these it is pretty exceptional to work 100% from home. I have been WFH since March, but half my company is lab based and even for myself, WFH full time has shown clear limitations - I expect when we go back (likely in June) most people doing what I do will WFH 2 or maybe 3 days a weeks max. When we hire foreign staff who will work 100% remotely, they are expected to spend 2-3 months office based first...