How many jobs have you had?

Not many. I did part time work for my parents and in laws when first married and also a couple of years in a bingo hall. Housewife/mother for some then in business with husband for 22 years. A short stint at a meat processing plant (in the offices only!) and then the last 15 as an accounts manager. Just retired and loving the freedom!!

I’ve had two paid jobs, one lecturing in English Language and Literature at a university in Scotland and one lecturing in English Language at an English university. That’s it.

By far the most important, interesting and rewarding job I’ve had was being a full time mother, but that’s not paid, so is undervalued these days. Many people don’t seem to count it as a job at all, but it is.

Two temporary jobs, the first in a wages dept during the summer holidays. The other was 6 months for the local authority compiling an historical card index.
I had only one full time paid job as a History teacher in a comprehensive school in 1978 when I left uni. It was initially a maternity leave cover for a few months, but the teacher left after her baby was born. I was there for the rest of my career, that's 30 years, was happy there and eventually
became Head of Dept.
That teacher came back to do my maternity cover 5 years later and I taught her children.

Not counting Saturday/holiday jobs whilst still at school, five.
Worked for an architect left there when got engaged for a better paid office job. Vets assistant until I had children, part time kennel maid,
then at a school until I retired.

Only two really, nursing then Social Care Manager. I have a complete change now as I am a volunteer in a small library and I love it.

I left school at 16 and worked in a bank. Then I worked in the accounts department of a large knitwear manufacturer.

After we got married we move areas, bought a business and had five children so I only worked when DH couldn't get anyone else!!

When the children were older, we bought a property and turned it into serviced offices also offering secretarial services. This was my project which I ran until one of our tenants made us an offer we couldn't refuse.

I have also volunteered all our married lives.

Paid jobs: 6 holiday jobs and temporary jobs, in and around my years of further education. I worked variously as a shop assistant, office clerk and waitress.

Between starting full time work and leaving to have children (no option in the early 1970s) 4, different employers, but all using my degree in economics. It took me the first two jobs, both lasting only six months to find my specialist niche.

Between returning to work and finishing work, 4 employers, the first two part time but my last employer, was a very big national and international company, where I had 4 jobs, one in each division, all of which I applied and competed for through a normal job application system.

Since 'choosing' voluntary redundancy into early retirement. Ten years with one major charity, including 6 months paid maternity cover. That work ended when funding for it did. I did similar work for a charity working in the same field, but gave up after a year because the charity did not support its volunteers properly.

Plus volunteering with several other charities associated with my leisure interests.

I’ve had 12 so far, I’ve been in my current job for nearly nine years which is the longest I’ve ever stayed in one job. I joke that it took me until I was 45 to decide what I wanted to do with my life. Got my degree at 50 and am now, finally doing a job I love.

I did holiday jobs when I was at school. I taught for 10 years until we moved to the Netherlands where I brought up my children and did voluntary work. When we came back after 18 years I was offered a part time job in the health department of a famous spa near here. I then worked part time for a company which organised conferences for 6 formers. Now I am retired.

My daughter did a law degree, then worked as a journalist for 10 years. She then became a personal trainer and now she is a software engineer at Sky and she is only 40!

I did a medical secretary course full time for 2 years at college then worked from 17y at a large GP practice for 2 years, the Public Health department in the local town hall for 3 months (boring) when my own lovely GP called into the office for me to get some smallpox vaccine from the fridge & he asked me whether I was enjoying my job. When I told him I hated it he just said ‘why not give your notice and come and work for me?’. Those were the days eh ... pre CV with application.... remember them? Can’t believe nowadays we could just walk out of a job one week and into another the next week! It’s a whole industry nowadays.
After that I had my family and worked part then full time at the local hospital for 34 years. Loved it!

I had 3 or 4, some overlapping: main career SW with brain injured; jumped off wheel and worked for last 10 years in freelance photography, arts outreach for young people and singing workshops for elderly, children and people with mental health problems. Overlapping with these, I also taught social sciences part time in a technical college.

I feel very privileged to have had this variety in my working career. It made finances a bit precarious at times, but was very satisfying.

BradfordLass72, like you I left school at 14 with no quals. I've had 10 jobs if you ignore my part-time work:

0. Assistant to a Butcher and in a Supermarket (while at school)
1. Apprentice Paint Sprayer - but found to be colour blind!
2. Paint Sprayer - primary colours only
3. Junior Leader - Royal Engineers
4. Soldier - Combat Engineer, Materials Technician (serving mainly overseas)
5. Project Materials Engineer (on 3 large civil engineering projects in the UK and abroad)
6. Sabbatical - studying and passing two MSc courses
7. Head of Corporate Planning and Development
8. Management Consultant
9. Chief Exec of a firm of Management Consultants
10. VP of the same firm of Management Consultants

Since retiring I volunteer at my three local libraries as a computer buddy

Far too many to mention! I left school at 15 and changed course so many times. In those days you could walk out of a job at lunchtime and found another before you had to go home and tell your parents what you'd done!

I've been a window dresser, riding instructor, worked in Marketing for a large car manufacture, various jobs in retail and lots of secretarial roles. Luckily I learnt shorthand and typing at school so always had that to fall back on in between career changes!

I left school at 15 with no qualifications and trained to be a shop window dresser. Moved about from shop to shop. Got married had 2 children, then took a part time car parts delivery job after becoming a single parent. A few years later I decided to become self employed doing my favourite thing. Driving. I taught people to drive for 45 years and only gave up at 70, 3 years ago. I couldn't have been happier.

I've had many changes of job too, some for a short time, my last for 20 years.
Post war there was such a labour shortage, you could pick and choose, so in a way I feel sorry for young people now who don't have that flexibility.
After all not many people have a clear idea of their best career while in teens

Interesting question. I've done a count and think it was 7 in total. But one of them was as a temp and I got sent all over the place. All my proper jobs were secretarial, except for 5 years in a sub-post-office.
And I did a few odds and ends when my children were young just to make ends meet... I was an Avon lady for a year; I sold lemonade door to door just before Christmas one year to get money for presents; I delivered leaflets;
I did a charity football coupon door to door for a couple of years; I cleaned caravans on Saturday mornings, and I once worked in a museum and had to dress up as a Victorian maid.

3 jobs pre marriage. 18 year gap then 4 jobs. Now strictly voluntary and enjoying (and enjoyed) all of it. Financial arena, considered boring by many but numbers were my thing. Life is good and I look back with fondness and gratitude.

I worked as a biomedical scientist from school until retirement, apart from staying at home for a few years when my daughters were small, when I did childminding and fostering for special needs children.

13 jobs that I can remember.... 6 full-time and 7 part-time fitting in with children , and husbands shift work! Ending with Tesco for 21 years. Now retired and regret it enormously .

Lots of different roles but all within nursing. Now I am retired I have been involved in several community projects. Now I am a walking Netball 'hostess' and about to be made Lady Captain of my Golf Club. I think this last one is the biggest challenge - I am out of my depth!!!

4 I think. left school at 15 with no qualifications worked at C & A for 4 yrs as a junior/sales assistant, got married had three children worked p/t at my children’s playgroup for 5 yrs on and off, got an evening job in a paper factory for a brief period when we were really struggling financially.

Then when I was 39 I worked for the London Ambulance Service as a driver till I retired 20 yrs later.

That include a lot of pioneer jobs..... I worked for the first company to open frozen food shop .... the chest freezers had no lids and had to be covered with cardboard at night !!! And did 8 hour shift in absolutely freezing conditions ( no pun intended) but gotta say I was never ill while I worked there . Also one of the jobs included was the first Self- Service petrol stations in England .... I worked in accounts where every day the garages would phone through there sales of all different fuel types and I would have to fill in a massive ledger 3ftx3ft .... I kid you not! Then had to work out in pounds shillings and pence the monies taken by each garage.... in my head or with pen and paper. try this ....324 gallons x 4 shillings and 9 pence, three farthings!!! Is there a sixteen year old who could do that now!!

I started work straight from school at 18 and went to uni when my children were at school. I taught in schools for 10 years and ended my career back at my uni. The last ten years of my working life were definitely the best. They were stimulating and challenging and I got a lot of overseas travel. When I started out I would never have believed I could achieve so much

Three jobs, but all connected....
Saturday and holiday Assistant in Libraries from age 16 to 21.
Librarian with same LA when I left University aged 21, until aged 35.
Senior Lending Librarian from age 35 until retirement.
All with the same Local Authority!
I'm nothing if not loyal