Which jobs would be morally rewarding?

Park Ranger / Contract Killer.

If you're in litigation, are you a lawyer? A friend is in-house lawyer for Barnados - every decent sized charity or business everywhere needs legal knowledge. If you're not a lawyer, what skills do you have?

It's that venn diagram of what you like, what you're good at and what people will pay you enough to do.

Butcher ?. About £30-35k. Max for skilled with lots of experience and depending on where(London), up to maybe £55-60k.

Keeping the country fed.

Drop to 3 or 4 days a week and volunteer for the rest?

Nusring, nursing support or social care. We are desperate.

Butcher! 😂 thanks. Not sure that's a step forward morally.

The only job I ever found tolerable was petrol station attendant. People were happy when you cleaned their windscreens and pumped up their tyres. I've moved on to better paying jobs, but the pay comes with dealing with unhappy people, giving them bad news.

Tony King is being interviewed on Five Live at the moment and he was just telling stories of when he was 'Head of Disco' at RCA records

I think you need to be aiming for something along these lines

I’d like to consider a job where I’m doing some good.

Tax Inspector

morally rewarding and minimum salary of £22000 is pretty hard

You could do volunteer sessions at CAB with a view to getting work in the field of advice work but pay is low and jobs scarce

Nursing requires a 3 or 4 year degree although there is some shorter courses for folk with degrees.

Nursing support / social care pays less

A friend is in-house lawyer for Barnados – every decent sized charity or business everywhere needs legal knowledge.

Pretty much what I was going to say.  Not only as an in house lawyer, but things like dealing with gifts in wills because they often need legal knowledge when things get complicated.  IME the charity sector is often a flexible workplace too, so part time hours etc are more normal than in the commercial world.

You could pick a sector, rather than a particular job?

I work in a marketing department. Which in a lot of places, I probably would hate, but I work for a university, so I can console myself that at least I'm not trying to persuade people to buy more pointless plastic tat, or bending the rules on privacy and tracking.

Charity would be good too. I'd love to work for the National Trust.

If you have transferable skills, you will likely find charity jobs at around £25k

https://www.triodos.co.uk/careers

If your background is banking then there are options that have a much better purpose than making/losing boat loads of cash.

Working for companies that are involved in climate change mitigation? Although I work for BigTechUS, my customers are focused on building and connecting renewable energy sources.

Prime Minister? 😉

There's been a right bunch of shysters over the last few years,so I think the whole country would love your strong and competent hand on the controls.

Could be very rewarding.

You have my vote. 😃

My family have chosen....

Son = Paramedic

Daughter = Nurse (Paediatric Palliative Care Team Lead)

Wife = Midwife (now more in leadership role)

My Sister = Housing Charity

My parents were both Police Officers

I'm the black sheep working for a big multinational company. However even my company is trying to do the right thing - decarbonising Energy and tackling the challenges of ensuing a stable energy distribution grid. Morally it sits ok with me just now.

Police?

I think this is the most practical so far:

If you’re in litigation, are you a lawyer? A friend is in-house lawyer for Barnados – every decent sized charity or business everywhere needs legal knowledge. If you’re not a lawyer, what skills do you have?

It’s that venn diagram of what you like, what you’re good at and what people will pay you enough to do.

Like the OP, I went through a process (although thankfully not as a result of cancer) of trying to work out what I could do to give the most societal benefit. My conclusion was that teaching/ education was probably the best. Unfortunately my skill set definitely doesn't lie in that area.

I'm an engineer and ultimately now work in the EV industry which is a pretty good compromise for me. (Yes it would be far better it people left cars for public transport, but I could be working as an engineer in the oil and gas/ defense/ etc sectors.)

Charity sector jobs was my first thought, sounds like you have the skills and attitude they would be keen on.

Morally rewarding..... a union rep if you're that way inclined 😉

I work in Civil Engineering in flood defence, and although it's just another civil engineering design job really, I moved from working for housing developers as they are ****s, to doing something that I believe is helping people. Even if most people we are helping just wants to moan at us or tell us how we're doing it wrong....

I have a mate that is a solicitor for the Environment Agency, prosicuting people that fly tip and/or cause environmental damage or pollution.

there’s a whole movement (“Earning to give”) based around doing whatever job earns the most in order that you can donate as much as possible (once you’ve paid you bills, etc!) so if you take that approach anything is an option!

That was Sam Bankman-Fried's justification / motivation for stealing $8bn of other people's money at FTX!

Although once he had the cash, he just spent it on himself and his mates and forgot to actually do any good with any of it.

But, hey at least he tried 😉

Used to work in banking. After moving out I noticed two things.

- The more companies PR being ethical, the more unethical douchebags they seem to attract. Can't explain why, maybe it provides cover for those that know they are douchebags.
- Contrary to the headlines, most UK banks are actually pretty ethical in comparison to other sectors.

Proceed with caution.

Morally rewarding….. a union rep if you’re that way inclined

Usually an unpaid role on top of existing duties.

Or did you mean union official? Not sure if you need specific quals for that TBH.

Police?

According to google, starting salad for a PCSO is £30k

According to google, starting salad for a PCSO is £30k

That's quite a big carrot.

 litter picker

would be awful. Cleaning up after lazy gobshites would just depress me so much. Bring back captial punishment for things like throwing food wrappers out of a car window.

Nursing and care. Those guys have my utmost admiration, respect and thanks.

Farming.  proper farming, rather than owning land.

tbh, anything where you create something useful to a high standard.

Building and trades could be rewarding, if you were not working for one of the big developers and could spend the time and effort to make every job a good job.

That’s quite a big carrot.

And you get to carry the stick.

if you were not working for one of the big developers and could spend the time and effort to make every job a good job.

Assuming you didn't have to compete on price for your work.....

I have a couple of roles, both of which I find rewarding. The main one of those is training. Simply can't express how much satisfaction I get from seeing someone performing or achieving due to something I've helped them "get".

I left a bank and went and worked for a university, a good chunk of my time wasn't especially rewarding but a good chunk was- just helping young people make good decisions basically, and quite a lot of working with kids after they started at the uni. And every once in a while you'd get to do something that made a real difference for someone and it was pretty damn good

If you have some transferable skills then take them to a more ethical industry. You don't need to throw it all out and do voluntary work or litter picking. I am an engineer by training and now do a broadly similar job that I used to do for a big commercial company but for smaller charities. The pay is a little lower than I could get elsewhere, but its still ok and there are other rewards. Pretty much everyone I work with is really nice, and generally a bit more relaxed and welcoming. No one is in it for the money so there is less competition and more collaboration. Its not saving lives or saving the world but I feel it is a nice place to be and does help people.

FWIW I'm an electronics engineer who left that industry to work for an international charity about 20 years ago and am still there.  What I would say is

The idea of donating some time to a charity while continuing your main earning job is a great one if you can manage.  There are a number of problems with charities that might mean it isn't for you.  We've had a few high earners who wanted to do a bit of charity work before they retired but they didn't last long.  It's not for everyone

One of the problems is that if you are doing HQ type work rather than field work then you don't really see the good stuff, you only see the difficult stuff.  The difficult stuff can be really quite painful.  You also see the 'workings' of a charity, what it really costs to do things, how much admin there is just to run a business compared to what people think you do.  It's all necessary but might not be as motivating as you imagine

Another is that if you are used to a high level of support it might just not be there.  You need to be comfortable wearing many hats.  If that is you then you will love it but if it isn't not fun.  You have to be used to old equipment, furniture, budgets

Don't imagine that everyone is motivated towards a common great goal.  There are some brilliant, inspirational, fantastic people.  There are also jobsworths, people who couldn't get jobs elsewhere, people who can't manage, people on the edge.  It's the same as everywhere

If you have the option of just dipping your toes in by volunteering a day a week/fortnight/month then that is a much better way in than a full commitment.  It's not that I don't recommend it, it's just not for everyone.  FWIW I love my job but I've also spent a lot of time in the countries we work in so I've had the field work experience to keep me motivated through the more horrible stuff

there’s a whole movement (“Earning to give”) based around doing whatever job earns the most in order that you can donate as much as possible (once you’ve paid you bills, etc!) so if you take that approach anything is an option!

This is a fantastic idea really, especially if you pick carefully what the money is to be used for.   If you can save 1k and then give it to a small charity for something like - use this to take your staff out for a meal - then that is more appreciated than you can imagine.  I know it sounds mad to give money to a charity for pizza for their staff but there often isn't money going around to lift people when they are overworked, burnt out, and to be given something just for the staff and not to be eaten up by the usual really helps. Or a friend recently had to deal with an inheritance and one of the charities only received a few thousand but that was enough above and beyond what they normally had to do remedial work on a caravan that they used to give holidays for people that would otherwise struggle.  If you can create your own small fund and then do the work to find good places to put it then you will find some great joy to be had.

I worked for a company getting long term unemployed people back in to stable jobs. And they also did quite a bit of work rehabilitating offenders and people with substance abuse issues. That was rewarding. Now in public transport which is quite a bit different but has a similar moral purpose (for me at least) in terms of levelling access to opportunity for some of the less fortunate people in society.

If the job you are doing isn't actually morally wrong in your mind then the best you can do for others is to earn as much as you possibly can and give away everything beyond what 22k would give you.

But no one ever is going to want to do that 😂

gordimhor

Full Member

Tax Inspector

You'd think....

Nearly got it right, bloody "progress"!

Delivery driver for Riverford? Or anything in organic/regenerate agriculture growing food.

Check out third sector for jobs relating to charity/ good causes.

https://jobs.thirdsector.co.uk/?_ga=2.158502716.76818516.1675789567-419449247.1675789567

Interesting that folks seem to think that working in an ethical industry is essential for moral rewards.

I don't (or at least the opinion of the huddled masses on here seem to only ever say the industry is a moral vacuum) and I do find my work personally rewarding.

My last job was morally rewarding. It was providing bike hire and driving cyclists to and from the start/end of their holidays. I genuinely felt that enabling more cycling holidays was reducing car/van traffic and the associated pollution. The likes of Sustrans will have a requirement for legal skills.

Boob inspector.

Teacher? Industry expert for an exam board? Education is massively frustrating at times, but having just got out of a very productive examiners' meeting to read a message from one of my upper 6th students who has just been offered his dream degree apprenticeship reminds me how much positivity can be imparted by education.

Stay in the current job (unless you really want/need to leave) but go 3 or 4 days per week and then spend some time doing something else... Maybe become a scout leader?

Helicopter door gunner in Austraila, shooting thousands of feral camels.

Proceed with caution.

I'll add, watch out for recruitment marketing that's specifically targeting people of your mindset, some companies making a big push on this to attract and retain staff.

Any business that askes for staff engagement surveys etc and have break out spaces are the evil empire with a spin doctor.

I'd like to work outside

Teaching  has its ups and downs

But I work in a sixth form college which is more up than down

Starting salary is more than £22000. Progressing the scales gets  you £42000 with out promotion

Never doubted what I’m doing is worth while. Really only the odd hour doing pointless stuff

Been there, done that, sort of!

It depends what you mean my morally rewarding. For me, it meant feeling like I was doing something that I believed in. When I worked in the public sector, I did a bunch of stuff I could believe in, and worked every hour there was to deliver it. But then I got put on some projects where I felt like the eligibility for spending was all wrong, and public funds were being wasted, and I just couldn't muster the will to sit in meetings and argue for stuff I didn't really believe in.

Writing for a MTB magazine might not sit in the same boat as 'rescuing dogs' or 'finding cures for cancer', but I do think it's a thing which brings other people joy, and through which I can try and Do Some Good. Having a platform to talk about things I care about like mental health, or environmental issues, or social justice feels purposeful, even if it's not the focus of the job.

It sounds like you probably have some sort of organisational and maths skills - those are probably transferrable to whatever sector or discipline you might find purpose in. So, what causes or issues get you excited? Are there things that bring you joy? What do you like making a difference to? What do you wish everyone else could experience in the way you do? Somewhere in there lies the clues to a happier future, I think. But bear in mind that turning your hobby into your work might mean you can't create separation - that's not for everyone.

I wouldn't suggest the bike industry (at least not this year!), but these tales of people making the switch to something they believe in might give some inspiration: https://singletrackmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/singletrack-magazine-issue-117-quit-your-job/

Complete curve ball but there’s a massive push up here in Scotland to recruit people into peatland restoration roles. Outside most days in some fantastic landscapes and actually making a difference to our climate crisis surely has to be morally rewarding.

Join the military, as long as false intelligence dossiers are not found, you will not have to go off and kill people. However you can get to drive oil tankers, ambulances, fire engines, do passport control, stop dams leaking with sandbags, stop people in dinghy's trying to float over here, cover for prison officers, set up emergency hospitals and give injections during a pandemic, provide security for international sporting events, the list is almost endless, good luck!

Depending on age and willingness to retrain you could look into working in healthcare.

There is a severe shortage of decent people working in cancer diagnostics or of you want to use the skills you have there would be opportunities for managerial roles in healthcare.

last few years have been hard work but with an aging population there are only going to be increasing numbers of people getting cancer and with your personal history it would probably feel pretty rewarding

I work in renewables, we generate loads of legal work.

@keith74 any links?

Any business that askes for staff engagement surveys etc and have break out spaces are the evil empire with a spin doctor.

we know we are the evil empire so got rid of the spin doctor.

Really just repeating what others are saying, but charity sector seems obvious. Cancer Research UK for instance employs lots of finance and legal types to deal with their huge quantity of multi-million pound grants/deals/contracts/partnerships. Most of them seem to have come from a corporate background and take big salary cuts to ‘give something back’. Despite the far, far more modest salaries, you could still easily get your £22k working part time.

There is a whole network of Law Centres, charities which provide advice on a whole series of legal issues - debt, immigration, housing, family law - which might suit your legal background.  https://vacancies.lawcentres.org.uk/vacancies/

My stock response: Read and complete all the tasks in What Colo(u)r is Your Parachute.

The answer is at the end of that.

I am an engineer who mainly focusses on people not drowning/losing everything in floods. And making sure railway bridges don't fall into rivers.

It's pretty satisfying as there are no shareholders. Well there are bit it's the employees.

Found myself in a similarish situation to you about five years ago at the age of 50.  I was lucky enough to be able to stop work for a couple of years during which time I recovered physically and mentally while learning to repair vintage wooden boats.  This was a great way to decompress and spend some time focused on being creative etc.

I also thought about what I really liked doing as I've always wanted to achieve the holy grail of making my hobby my job.  The upshot was that I retrained as a sailing instructor and now run a sailing school based at a club on the Thames.

My children are at a state secondary and I have been doing work there, initially as an exam invigilator and more recently as a tutor helping youngsters who are in bottom set years 7-11.  If there is one sector which needs the support of people who want to make a difference and do good it is education (in my opinion at least).  My school is ranked outstanding and in one of the UK's most affluent boroughs and yet there are kids who come to school hungry and will a huge range of social and psychological issues at play.  I have also had feedback that the fact that I am an older male is a benefit to the school as the majority of the (excellent and massively motivated) staff are younger and female.  Bottom set is populated by boys so providing, in some small way, a male role model really helps them.

So, I'm now doing three part time jobs, busy and stimulated all the time, have control over my life (no work on a Monday!), earn a fraction of what I used to do but am many times happier and believe I am doing something morally good helping kids and adults learn new skills and achieve their potential.  My health is also better than it has been for a decade as are my relationships with loved ones.  I am very fortunate to have the support of my wife who is our main breadwinner but as I am able to combine work with childcare and running the home (cooking, cleaning etc) she is happy with the trade-off as we are saving all the money we used to spend on childcare and so on.

Good luck!

(As an aside, drop me a line if you are thinking of working for a charity.  I spent four years running a business providing services to 150 of the largest organisations in this sector and would suggest that it may not deliver on your desire for something 'morally rewarding'.  Like all businesses, charities can have significant moral blindspots which is why I would never go back).

Morality is a massive subject but I will take it as "feeling like you are doing good and helping the world".

First thing you need to decide is how do you want to help the world? Environmental? Society? Wildlife? Fighting for the under represented?

You then need to define the compromises you are prepared to make. Money, location, what type of organisation you would work for / with. How close to the results you want to be?

A family member has retrained and taken a 'sign language' course at university. She's about to start work, but has done voluntary work using her skills in the deaf community.

I'd steer clear of charities if you can, unless you find one that actualy does what it sets out to do, or you're capable of turning things around.

I'm going to generalise here, but based on my own experience, directly and indirectly with a reasonable number of charities covering a couple of sectors, they range from broadly incompetent, to scandalously corrupt.

Some charities tend to be set up by people with a vision, or those that have been broken by the 'system' so set out to do something, while lacking the ability to follow through properly and, through no fault of their own, are unable to follow through.

Some see them as an income with little demand. fine if the outcomes are met, but not exactly driven is it? these inevitably are unsustainable past a few rounds of external funding.

Some set them up possibly with good intentions, but end up being condiuts for donated money and funds generated through succesful, but vague funding applications, to go into paying high wages, or payng over the odds for services provided by mates/relatives etc, rather than set aside to do what it set out to do or improve a service that the cash is specifically given to do.

I'm sure they're not all like that. possibly.

Not exactly morally rewarding though.

I’m sure they’re not all like that. possibly

They really are not like that. We've existed for 33 years, levered millions into our work, led the world in many areas of our work, still work with thousands of schools and early years settings, and make sure our finances are aimed at doing what we do really well.

Some of our founders, including a certain David Attenborough, had an aim that we should do ourselves out of a job. That still remains a measure of success, and it's disappointing that we're still here and needing to do what we do.

YCMMV

In fact we are recruiting, so come join us.

https://ltl.org.uk/work-for-us/

https://uk.indeed.com/jobs?q=citizens+advice+worker&l=&from=searchOnHP&vjk=eb70dddaad392668

£30k a year but might have to live near Bradford!

But CAB or most LA's do have welfare rights workers and most (paid) staff earn over £22k. Defeat the evil of the DWP (I work for them btw) 😉

This is a bit of a shameless plug. Arboriculture is deperately short of people, particularly the technical side and moreso of Local Authority Tree Officers. LA surveyors can now earn more than £22,000 and TO's are generally paid a little more. You are generally advocatimg for trees and often by extension green spaces; this might not be about retaining each and every tree but maintaining and hopefully growing a healthy and diverse tree stock for the benefit of all.

CAB / advice work jobs are very hard to get into and certainly Mrs TJs job with Edinburgh city councils advice shop she barely earned £22000 with a law degree and 30 years experience.  She really struggled at times to get jobs as its very competitive.

that job in Bradford the OP would go in as a trainee

Protect the planet by lowering carbon output, while injecting joy into the lives of your customers.  Become a woodburner guy. 🙂

There's no downside that I can see with that one.

I work in IT and whilst I didnt have a life changing event, I was feeling increasingly bothered by only working for profit. That, in combination with seeing how poorly people mistreat the trail networks (mainly litter) I felt like I needed to do something that made a difference.

Also, in my experience (and I'll admit I am quite the existential nihilist) hell is other people; so I wanted to work for the planet.

After about a years searching and applying, I have just landed a job at Friends of the Earth. I start in April, the salary is very reasonable, and they're priortising work/life balance by moving all contracts to 30 days a week. I won't be working Mondays anymore, I'll be riding them.

I realise that this is a pretty niche example, and believe me I feel like I've hit the jackpot. But my point is, as someone with transferable skills you can find legal work at places that make a difference.

People seem fixated on making a difference themselves; but I came quickly to the conclusion that you have to collaborate to do that. You need to find a company or a business that aligns with your idea of 'making a difference' and just start chucking out applications. Whilst retraining and taking a lower salary is an option - its not the only option.

Tree planting, mate (paid per tree). You’ll be so knackered at the end of each day anything other than primal needs will be the last thing on your mind!

 30 days a week.

I've had weeks like that

Ha! That’s not exactly good work life balance is it 😉

I meant 30 hours…

Forestry

Currently working in banking dealing with litigation. Having suffered from and recovered from Cancer in the last 2 years has caused me to rethink my life and occupation. I’d like to consider a job where I’m doing some good. Making a difference to other people or to the world in general.

Interesting views.

If you are fair I don't see anything wrong with being a litigator or in any other jobs at all. (This comes from someone who strongly believes in karma) i.e. all jobs can be morally rewarding with the right intentions.

People can have a morally right job yet with all the negative intentions. Plenty of examples if you look around.

I have seen people who tried to destroy others privately but front themselves as charity donors to preach the good. Well, they have just doubled their own negative karma. LOL!

Think like litter picker or volunteer counsellor, only the pay would have to be minimum 22k, which would be a substantial reduction to current salary.

If you wish to off set your karma then help those who help others. Make sure they are really genuine people and don't judge the book by the cover.

Brainstorm with me, what might you suggest?

Be a morally fair person from within yourself. i.e. start with your intention. Not easy once you start evaluating yourself tbh.

p/s: slight hijack. I have also seen people crying in their old age regretting their past actions. Too late. Time is almost up.

I see someone mentioned renewables, that's what I came here to type. Your skills would you get you into that industry.

I've gone bike mechanic, hydro engineer, forestry engineer, in that order. I wouldn't recommend commercial forestry as morally rewarding as it's definitely not a force for good environmentally (its also pretty dull engineering wise). Forestry is probably not good for the mental health of the lower ranks either, but they do need land agents if that fits you. The rule I try to apply is 'being part of the solution, not part of the problem', to most directions I take in life, which is roughly the same as what you're looking for.

Busker? 🎶

https://www.environmentjob.co.uk/jobs/93661-community-partnerships-lead

Coincidentally, there’s a well paid job at FoE that suits someone with a background in law 🙂

For me the problem here is twofold:

1) Any job you do after a while loses its charm, work is dull. So be aware of that.
2) Any job any of us do can be undermined by morals, all our jobs have a bad effect on someone somewhere, that's just life.

Any job where your perceived value to society is greater than your perceived value of your income.