What is currently the most difficult sector to work in?
Posted by Desperate-Drawer-572@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 53 comments
Is it hospitality? Money is bleeding, jobs have dried up and customer demand is not what it was once. Seen a lot of new restaurants shut within first year too.
RiceeeChrispies@reddit
From a pure morale perspective, probably frontline police.
WhyToHide@reddit
Consultinf
W51976@reddit
Care sector most definitely.
EmergencyDry658@reddit
Can I ask why? People are still old and needed to be cared for, what’s the change?
MountainMuffin1980@reddit
OPs question is odd, because it's more focused on the business owner. There are, and always will be, hospitality jobs. If someone loses their waiting job one week they can almost certianly get another one a week later.
In terms of the actually difficulty of doing (not keeping) a job. Caring is tough. You are dealing with ill and dying people, cleaning up drool, puke, piss shit and god knows what else. Trying to enrich people who might not be all there etcetc on piss poor wages with overstretched staff. It's rewarding work, but not monetarily.
ourmanflint27@reddit
Have you seen the rate of pub closures, and the youth having no money. At best hospitality is seasonal, its fucked
AnonymousTimewaster@reddit
Not as fucked as having to clean up a guy's shit who you just saw wanking at you (yes, this happened to a nurse I know).
audigex@reddit
It's busy physical work, on your feet for long shifts, working nights, wiping bums and dealing with aggressive/upset dementia sufferers etc... all for minimum wage or minimum wage plus such a derisory amount that it's practically an insult
Managers rarely give even the slightest shit about the staff, you're expected to just take whatever hours you're rota'd or work shifts with no notice - otherwise you'll get shoved onto a worse rota or given fewer hours next week etc. There are exceptions, but it's common
da-happy-cyclops@reddit
Theres more people and less funding.
Inquisitivemind25@reddit
Care sector.
InsertObligatoryPun@reddit
Not even close. Long shifts covering all hours of the day. Piss, shit, blood, disease. Watching people slowly deteriorate alone from their families, wondering when they’ll go and if the take matters into their own hands. All for piss poor wages.
continentaldreams@reddit
It's disgraceful how little they get paid
Lazy-Limit-8684@reddit
Yeah I’m in awe of people who work in care. Insane job, anyone doing that kind of thing should be getting paid so much better
audigex@reddit
Yeah I remember sitting in the care home with an elderly relative and seeing how hard the carers work, thinking that they work 3x as hard as me for 1/3 as much money
Unfortunately as with most things it comes down to supply and demand - most care homes consider that "anyone" can do care work (because they're only interested in having a body in post as cheaply as possible to fulfil legal obligations on staffing levels etc) and so they'll hire anyone to keep wages down
If the skills and attitude were actually taken into account properly, carers would be paid far more
AnonymousTimewaster@reddit
This is always going to be the top answer. I don't know how it could even be remotely close.
Consistent-Show1732@reddit
I'll second that. It's rewarding work, but the pay definitely does not reflect the work involved. We do it for the people not the money.
cannontd@reddit
Software development. 3 months ago ai became good enough to write code so now everyone is in a mad rush to get it onto their orgs. Problem is, it’s so new everyone is trying to wrap their head around it and it is costing thousands. Not sure why I am busting my arse over getting this rolled out when they’ll probably just lay me off once done. Talk about digging your own fucking grave.
I’m about 6 months the newer models will go beyond coding and be better able to replace other cognitive tasks. And by that I mean if you have a job that involves interacting with a screen - winter is coming. No one has any clue outside our software dev bubble…
continentaldreams@reddit
Yep it's dying. My husband is a senior software developer and thankfully he's not too high and not too low in the company, so that hes not dead weight and he's not new.
valkyrieramone@reddit
My son is doing a software engineering degree. What do you recommend him to focus on, diversify in, or even shift via a masters into?
SpartacusUK@reddit
Going to throw teaching into the mix. They’re leaving in droves
aaron2933@reddit
Why's that?
continentaldreams@reddit
Piss poor working environment, piss poor pay - all my teacher friends are quitting. People think it's a moral disservice when teachers and nurses/doctors quit, like they almost owe us their service - complete bull
Meanwood53@reddit
Can confirm. Qualified as a teacher in 2024. Was told in no uncertain terms by every single teacher I worked with that I'd be best off getting out before I commit myself and following my training year I left for a charity sector job. The few people I trained with who are still in the job are miserable and I reckon about a third of my course went on to do other things and a solid other third went to go and teach abroad. People massively underestimate how difficult it is.
bishibashi@reddit
Give it 15 years though and the ones who stayed will probably be out earning you in your sector with a better pension and huge holidays. Doesn’t mean it’s for everyone by any means, but medium-long term teaching is a good job.
Astonednerd@reddit
Depends entirely on the subject tbh. Most STEM teachers will get massively outward by their peers who go into other careers, for many art or humanity grads what you said will hold true though. It why our teacher shortage is so skewed to certain subjects
Public-Amphibian4698@reddit
Yeah it’s odd that a PE teacher is paid the same as a Physics teacher. One job will get 100ish applications for PE and a Physics job may not even get one. Upside is golden handcuffs.
AdRealistic4984@reddit
Paramedic looks awful
audigex@reddit
My brother's one, loves it - especially as a paramedic rather than an EMT (EMTs get paid less despite doing most of the same job)
There's more "social work and dealing with time wasters" than he'd like, but a lot of the job is varied and you're making a very real difference for people in some of the hardest moments of their lives
He gets a letter from the ambulance service sometimes after a patient survives a cardiac arrest he's attended (one of the few cases where you can clearly say "you literally saved this person's life") and there's a young lad who tried to hang himself who my brother literally cut down and brought back.... that lad (who's stated this publicly himself and named my brother btw, just to be clear that this info comes from the patient not the clinician, no confidentiality breach) is now running charity events for men's mental health charities etc. No question about it, he would've been dead
It takes a certain mentality not to take that kind of image home to your family, but for those who can do it... there aren't too many other jobs where you're directly saving lives like that
JoeyJoJoeJr_Shabadoo@reddit
Brutal time to be a fletcher
aFPOON@reddit
maple shortbows just aren’t selling on GE like they used to
FannyFielding@reddit
Now that job must really suck. Oh wait. I read it wrong.
bishibashi@reddit
Shut it godber
iron233@reddit
It will be in demand for world war 4
Poo_Poo_La_Foo@reddit
I'd say medicine. Medical staff trained their whole lives to help and fix people and are often treated like shit, worked like dogs and not paid enough.
I am not in medicine, but the stories I hear can be unbelievable.
Ibumkoalas@reddit
Total opposite of the question, im a fabricator/welder and my phone never stops ringing, theres no where near enough of us now, with stuff like hinkley point swallowing up all the man power on silly big wages.
Krismusic1@reddit
Glad you are doing well mate. Sincerely. Good to hear someone is!
Ibumkoalas@reddit
If only I wasn't so lazy 🤣 cheers pal
Lazy-Limit-8684@reddit
Do you mind me asking what kind of rates a welder gets?
Ibumkoalas@reddit
For 11 days on 3 days off 10 hour days its 110k with lodge travel and stuff, look up NAECI rates
sfxmua420@reddit
Care, whether health or social is on its knees with no signs of improvement
audigex@reddit
Care very much feels like a "The beatings will continue until morale improves" sector
EyeAware3519@reddit
Tech is pretty much dead at the moment, all companies are contracting and cutting salaries and it's not even because of AI, just greed.
bishibashi@reddit
I’d say it is AI driven, just not necessarily directly yet. Greed has always been the biggest driver in tech, and for a long time a good way to market share was to have all the best brains working for you. AI appears to make it less likely that that will remain the case so dropping some of your highest costs to allow you to invest in the tech you need to without delay once you know what it is makes sense. I’m glad to be out of it, but doubt I’d say the same if I hadn’t benefitted for 30 years first.
audigex@reddit
Honestly I think it's mostly just a case that they know they can use AI and competitor redundancies as an excuse and shield
A friend just got laid off at a company "because of AI" when their policies prohibited AI use... clearly just an excuse
They know they'll get less flak if they blame AI and make redundancies at the same time as their competitors
bvc900@reddit
Tech is not dead at the moment. Quite the opposite.
quarky_uk@reddit
Not just AI, offshoring.
For most of the projects I work on, even for European customers, I am one of the few European based employees.
Infinity_Worm@reddit
Honestly tech at it's worst is a million times better than an actual difficult sector like care
Jenpot@reddit
I'd guess care sector or most things in the NHS. It's on its knees and I can only imagine the levels of stress the staff are under.
ourmanflint27@reddit
Yup, paramedics in training currently being told no jobs available, most will be back filled by existing staff. Proper brain drain as lots looking at Australia and orher places.
UnionBeneficial6181@reddit
IT
TeamOfPups@reddit
I love working in the charity sector but salaries have been stagnant for 20 years.
I'm freelance now but I wouldn't be jumping back into salaried employment for exactly the same salary as I had in 2006, but that's genuinely what's advertised. Same senior specialist role, same salary.
Emergency_Writer159@reddit
Care sector, also made much worse because of private equity ownership and this level of exploitation is only possible because councils have no choice but to provide care.
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