UKH

(Or other outdoor adventuring)

I was reading the firefighter thread, and it got me wondering what everyone reckons the best jobs are for having free time to do things like climb or play in the mountains. Firefighting seems up there, and I'd suggest that live events are pretty good too - I predominantly do corporate events these days and essentially get to have January-February and July-August off without massive potential loss of income (as a self-employed person), and all sorts of other random collections of days and sometimes weeks.

Any other contenders?

If you're single and live a cheap lifestyle basically any self employed contracting work that doesn't rely on you maintaining a customer base will allow you to take masses of time off to climb.

I was easily able to do six months work / six months climbing doing retail banking admin, and I knew scaffolders who only worked about three or four months a year and spent the rest of their time in places like Thailand.

I worked a summer as a YHA assistant in Borrowdale. That was pretty good.

Teaching, though the fixed date holidays can be frustrating. 

A few years ago I chatted to someone in the neighbouring tent in the campsite we were on (not far from Chamonix) and he was a school caretaker and said that it was the best for flexibility due to holidays and he didn't have to mark kids homework etc

Get a job where you are trusted to work from home and you are allowed to work your time flexibly. Before I took early retirement last January I was working from home ever since the Covid lockdown. I was trusted to do my job and had no complaints when I worked long days in order to get my work done in 3 days, sometimes 3.5 days. In other words my weekend was usually longer than my working week. I was very lucky to have a good employer who was understanding and realistic.

The dole *

* Personal experience (and for any quibblers, yes the dole is a job)

I met a couple, both climbers from USA, I can’t remember which state. They were on a teaching scheme that paid 75% of their salary to get the 4th year off paid. I always thought that was pretty good for climbing. 

Also gives you great flexibility for training too. Want a rest day? Do more work. Want to go to the wall for a few hours in the afternoon when it's quiet? Meeting block. I'm a research-only academic, and this is what I find most useful - the long spells travelling less so 😂

Pretty much anything with a well designed (this bit's crucial of course) 12-hour shift rota.

3-4 days a week with regular stretches of 3-4-5 days off without having to take any leave. Obviously you need to be able to cope with night shifts etc.

I'd find 9-5 Mon-Fri/Sat utterly soul destroying nowadays, despite doing it for many years!

Another one for teacher.

Holiday dates might be inflexible but what else gives you 13 weeks paid leave every year?

Doesnt apply to me but it still seems to be one of the dwindling number of industries where if you start early, you can retire early as well.

And you can base yourself anywhere from Lerwick to Looe!

Academia is excellent for those who can make it work. Good to hear you seem to have done so. But job insecurity and burnout are so rife in the sector it can be difficult to foresee a sustainable career, climbing or not!

Prior to being a firefighter I worked for the local authority. We had a salary sacrifice scheme where I could buy extra leave. For £60 a month (before tax) I got an extra 10 days leave which when combined with bank holidays gave me 50 days annual leave a year. It allowed me to go on at least 2 long distance walks a year as well as regular climbing and family holidays. Other departments could buy upto 28 days but sadly we were considered "vital" so couldn't get any more than the 10. 

Holy smokes that's a bargain! Interested to hear if that's something available to current staff (I'm guessing not haha!)

It wouldn't suprise me if it is still available. Local authorities are generally under huge financial pressures and it was instigated as a way of reducing wage bills without redundancies. 

Local Authority.  These are moving to 4 day a week with no loss of pay or other benefits.

Anything involving working with a computer or from a computer.  With mobile internet connections you can work from anywhere including a van/camper.  (My step daughter does this - she teaches English 1:1)  Lives in Spain.  Visits us here and still can work from the UK.  

Seasonal worker.  Ski instructor, life guard etc.,  My grandson is a seasonal life guard in NSW -  Australia.  Spends their summer working for the LA, then he spends the rest of the year swanning around Europe and/or the Far East surfing/climbing and going out with exotic females.
I also knew a NZ seasonal Ski instructor  in Aviemore lived/worked in Australia/NZ in Europe  but spent the rest of the year skiing  in Europe, etc., 

I guess working for Stormont in NI is a pretty good number at the moment.  They get paid and do no work. 

I live in Sheffield and have a local authority desk job that is mainly about emails and report writing, ie very few meetings or fixed appointments.

We get 30 days annual leave (after 5 years' service), an extra day's leave a month if we do an extra 7.5 hours' work a month, and flexible working hours. We can also "buy" up to 5 days extra annual leave.

In summer I usually start at 6am and finish at 3pm. In winter I try to work 6am to 10am and 2pm to 6pm.

So I get loads of time to run and climb on the Eastern edges, just 15 min from home, during the working week and plenty of holiday too!

Reading the replies, I think a lot would depend on whether you want, say, a few hours frequently to go bouldering, a few days frequently to go rock climbing, a few weeks regularly to go to the Alps, or a couple of months at a time to go to the Greater Ranges. And whether you want flexibility to make the most of British weather or not.

In my previous job doing IT support I moved to doing a 4 day week (took a 15% drop in salary but totally worth it) and also regularly “bought” an extra 5 days holiday.

So any job that offers these options….

A friend works as a software tester (lots of experience so good pay) and from what I can gather spends about 6 months each year working and the rest travelling and competitive cycling (not enough to pay bills from). 

For IT jobs, anything with home working options and flexible hours is best if you can get it. A lot of employers will want you to be contactable/available for meetings regularly so whilst WFH is often possible working at whatever time of day you fancy may not be. 

There must be a reason that there’s a national shortage of teachers…

I think the big trick is to live somewhere with climbing within 30 minutes and at least one very good wall , more than having a specific job

One thing that's worth considering is whether you'll be contented in the work. I find that if I'm not happy at work then I struggle to switch off regardless of how many days off I have so plenty of time for other stuff is difficult to appreciate or use wisely.

Quite.

I'll take extra days off regularly over working like stink all year for a stint of 4 weeks away (or whatever) any time you ask me.

Agreed, those parts are absolute shit. I've been "lucky" the past few years to have some stability, which is rapidly coming to an end...

You also need to consider how your employment fits round that of your family, especially if your partner in life is also your climbing partner.

I had a friend who was a seasonal watersports instructor, lots of downtime in winter but 7 days a week though the summer - his partner was a teacher and her time off was when he was busiest with work.

He ended up going off on epic trips with her flying out to join him for just a week over half term, then she went away solo during the summer holidays - not exactly ideal.

I wouldn't recommend teaching personally. I left teaching after 20 years for an engineering job and I climb much more, on not much less leave, which is flexible.The timing of teaching holidays misses a lot of the best weather periods for climbing. 6 weeks off in the monsoon season after staring out of your classroom window at settled high pressure throughout May and June is typical. Only a week in October to join the rest of the climbing world in Greece.

Amongst my friends, those with the most freedom to climb are the self employed tradesmen, who can turn work on and off quickly, catching those typical mid week weather windows at the last minute.

Not sure what this says about their hourly rate or customer satisfaction tho

That is very true. Also proximity to an airport, imagine the climbing opportunities if you lived close to Gatwick.

Not great after work tho'

Yeah, I chose Gatwick for the variety of destinations.

Ilkley, Otley, Guisley, Sale, aigburth, etc limited destinations and a bit more local climbing.

Retired, so your full time job is Rock climbing!!!

There's this fans thing I've seen people do. If only I could remember it's name...

Self employed Bookkeeping. Not glamorous & bit of a learning curve but... every company needs them so you can work for some interesting companies, can do it totally online these days, works very well with flexible working, £ph has been going up with technological advances, demand also going up as a huge part of the incumbent workforce don't want to learn the new software (it's not that hard for most with basic IT). 

Imo teaching was rubbish for most things. Work life balance was critical for me. And teaching wasn't a win, for my circumstances. Some manage to make it all happen tho. Depends what lamp you stroke and in what direction etc. 

I also now live next to Stansted airport. Yes great for trips. But 2hrs before. And hour or 3 on the plane. And hour or so the other end. Then car hire and travel to destination. 

That all easily takes a fair time and so isn't very weekend friendly. Cost has also gone up from what it was a decade or so ago. 

Great for shorter break. Terrible for local crag. Local walls are nothing special. 

From my years, being single (time and flexible rich) and having a little available cash would be the ideal. Next comes motivated climbing friends. As you can't climb in a sustained manor without company imo. 

Having a family when you live a long way from a crag has proven the end of climbing for now for me. But I also think that's my choice and not a shared experience by all. 

Job wise. I met many computer based climbers that spent a few hours here and there doing their thing and living anywhere. As a contractor with client list (clients your boss) or labour based enterprise can offer issues. 

The holy grail hasn't been found yet. 

Good luck!

Two good friends and climbing partners left teaching because it destroyed them. My wife just about manages one evening at the wall every three weeks. Holidays up to spring half term are for working. I strongly recommend that if you want to climb , don’t teach 

Sure, it's not everybody's cup of tea.

Im a talent buyer for music festivals and a concert promoter. I have to be in the UK during certain months in the summer mainly but I am able to work wherever outside of that. I don’t have set hours where I’m online but tend to dip in and out through the day / night due to dealing with people in different parts out the world but it does mean I can get out a lot if I manage work loads well enough. I’ve always thought live event riggers would be a great job for climbers. Working with ropes at height occasionally and they are always the best paid people in the crew by a mile. There’s a big demand for them too and sometimes they are getting paid their day rate for about hour or less of work. Pretty ideal! 

Know a few people who work remotely. On their laptops at Bas Cuvier and Ceuse for example...not sure what 4/5G is like in the Garwhal Himalaya but for everyday climbers this is a good option perhaps?

I'd say it's changed massively since I started. My memory (there aren't figures pre 2010) of the end of the year in a large secondary school, in the late 1990s, was of a handful of staff moving (usually for promotion) to another school and occasionally one or two staff retiring. In my first 5 years I can remember one leaving to run a B&B and another moving to Aberdeen to work in the oil industry for more than the headteacher was on. Last year 4k retired but 40k left the profession early. I'll admit part of my reason for me entering the profession have been outlined in this thread, another her is that I enjoy teaching. I still do the odd day in different schools, if I was staring now there are some niches I might be lucky enough to fill, but in general I don't think I would last long 

Near me (Inverness) there is a huge Christmas tree farm that has work going all year round so you can basically work there as it suits upon agreement with the bosses. All jobs there if you are willing to graft extremely hard will make good money. Harvest time is probably the best time for money making though.  I personally during the single harvest of nine weeks I worked there was earning between £750-800 per week before tax the money I most made a day was £200 before tax. I know that there were a good few off season outdoor instructors working the harvest too as an easy (absolutely not easy jolly hard work) way of making a fair bit of cash really quickly. 

I know a few locum doctors who are absolutely living the fine life of fun right now and are working as they need to when they need to. Definitely seems the best way in my mind or other bank hospital nursing work for that matter. However, the above Christmas tree work is for folk like me who haven't done several years of uni hard work and aren't a doctor or nurse because academia wasn't their thing. 

Hey you probable get more paid holiday than most.  4weeks off in total in a year is most other people's lot.

Absolutely, that is why teaching can be good for climbing. But it's no good for Nepal, India, Alaska, Patagonia...... (the list goes on). Basically anywhere for which the season is not July/August (and that increasingly probably even includes the Alps). And generally, when your friends plan a trip during term time, you're left out🙁.

As someone suggested earlier, teaching is not the job it was. I know several teachers, all of whom are either part time or are desperate to go part time because it is such a difficult and draining job. Most of them need the longer-than-most-people-get holidays just to catch up on sleep - and the work they couldn't fit in during term time

What kind of work?

I used to net them up as a youth. Regretfully that didn't earn me £200 a day.

I've been a full-time firefighter for 12 years. 

It definitely lends itself to being a good job to pursue climbing in your spare time. We have four (well 3.5) days off at a time which is more than enough for a short trip somewhere. We also get quite a lot of AL and because of how our shifts work, the periods of time off can be quite long (12 or 20 days). 

That said, there's nothing about the job itself which is great for climbing. Obviously there are loads of outdoor type jobs which could enable you to actually get paid to climb or do similar outdoor pursuits. Probably don't pay as much though.

We do rope rescue training for all personnel in my brigade but this isn't the case for most brigades. Plus it is nothing like climbing and is centered massively over safety. Checking, double checking and re-checking everything, using twin lines, not lowering yourself etc etc. That said I do still enjoy it, especially if we get a good off-site scenario somewhere up high (cranes, tall buildings etc).

Army Reserves, get paid to go climbing. More you climb, the more you get paid. 
 

Anything well paid enough near the mountains. Especially areas with more demand than supply. Thus taking time out then walking straight back into the money is easy. IT was like that for me, I’m at the retirement end now.

I was digging the potted Christmas trees. 20p per tree. So when I dug 1000 trees in one day it amounted to £200. Needless to say I only dug 1000 trees once but outside of that between 700-800 trees was my average. Netting was considerably worse money for me tho so thankfully I didn't do much of it.

 P.s.  In the summer there is labelling and Pruning. I'm not sure of the labelling rates but I was told that pruning can work out at £13 an hour. Not sure how intensive the labour is but that is a pretty tidy rate regardless

It's worth making sure that you aren't breaking visa terms or creating yourself and your employer tax issues if you work abroad.

Also definitely don't try and take anything defence related or export controlled abroad, that would be a bad idea (mostly relevant to engineers and scientists).

Contracting in Rope Access has been good, roughly 5 months work a year for a reasonable Salary once you get established as well as a fair bit of Travel and interesting work. 

For the last 15 years I've been a self-employed contractor in the project management/construction sector, and I've always found it pretty good for mountaineering and climbing (despite the fact that it's generally Mon-Fri work), since my work is output based, not hours based, and so it's usually very easy to plan my work out so that I finish early if I want to. Being a contractor, I can just take time off whenever I want, albeit unpaid. You do get some periods, or some projects, whereby it's all work and no play for a bit, but it is well paid to compensate for that, and you tend to know in advance if the project is about to go through a really busy and intense period. Been hybrid working since 2017 as well, and that helps even more.

Although I don't 'love' my work, it's very tolerable (depending on the project), and whilst there are better jobs out there in terms of time off for climbing, I'm happy with the balance between money, security and time off that my profession gives me.