u/Keywi1

I work as an analyst for local government, and on the whole I do really enjoy my job. However, now I’m approaching my mid 30s I’ve become more worried about what the long term future looks like. In some careers (law, engineering, surveying etc), your value seems to increase as you age and knowledge increases. When my Dad was made redundant age 56 (telecommunications engineer) he had a call the very next day from one of their contractors offering a well paying job.

Meanwhile in another public sector organisation we work with a lot, about half their analyst team was made redundant last year.. and their old team lead in his early 50s can’t find anything. No calls, no recruiters calling him up. In my last career in insurance, you’d learn something new from the people in their 50s all the time. I sat next to a woman in her late 50s, and often had to ask for advice on how to approach something complex. It just isn’t the case in analytics in my experience.

With the way AI is developing, and how data analytics involves constant learning due to how technologies always change, I feel the career path involves a lot more grinding to stay on top rather than accumulating knowledge over time.

Perhaps I’m just being pessimistic, but recently seeing these redundancies, hearing about the poor job market, and seeing how the people in their late 20s and 30s are probably the most technically skilled, does make me wonder how things will go in the future with my own career.

Im planning to apply for the Engineering BSc at the end of August/early September (I just need to work a couple of things out before decide to commit 100%). If I apply for the course before the deadline of September 10th, would it still be ok to also apply for student finance in early September? Thanks!

EDIT: I live in England, and would be applying for the part-time tuition fee loan. I already have a degree, but believe I’d be eligible for additional funding as Engineering is listed on the OU website as one of the courses where this exception would be applicable. October start 2026 is the last option to do this as I think this will be changing from Jan 2027 due to how LLE works.

I’m in my 30s and looking to do an online masters in another subject, also by distance learning. I’m surprised that pretty much every uni seems to offer an MSc in Data Science or perhaps a slightly different wording of it.

Surely this whole market is heavily oversaturated by now? The interesting thing is I work as an analyst, and none of my colleagues have a masters in Data Science, so where are all these people getting jobs?

I’ve heard a few examples of people already working in engineering, and this degree has been useful to get chartered, or move up from a technician role. However has anyone here broken into an engineering job from another industry because of the degree? I think I’m yet to see an example of this which is a bit worrying.

Im currently living around 2 hours away from family, with my wife and 6 year old daughter. We have no family or friends nearby for that extra wider support. We also live in Norfolk, so I think it’s harder to make friends here as adults in general. Overall though, it had its benefits. Very safe, lots of great walks in the summer, beach trips etc, and relatively cheap housing.

While things are ok in general, my wife and I have recently been thinking maybe life would be better to be living near family in the Milton Keynes area. Secondary to that, while I have a decent job now, I’m aware that if I was made redundant there’s not really much else I can do in this area due to a relatively poor local job market.

The main concern is our daughter who really is happy and thriving in school. Back in MK we could probably only afford one of the slightly sketcher areas. But then being able to give my daughter a much closer connection with aunts, uncles, cousin and grandparents sounds like it would be really beneficial for her. Honestly for me too in terms of career opportunities.

Just not really sure what to do here. Has anyone made a similar move?

I started playing HS again back in mid 2024, and reached legend most months, with a few different decks and classes - mostly DK, DH, Paladin and Priest. Ever since rotation I’ve just been unable to do it. The climb from D5 to Legend is a real slog now, and with limited time (full time job, a kid, playing on mobile only), I haven’t been able to do it, with my best finish at D2. I’m back at D10 now, but with no star bonus left it’s a painful experience trying to climb.

Maybe I should’ve just played imbue Druid when it was viable, just to get the card back lol.

I know the stats are there on HS Guru and im probably misplaying or doing the mulligan badly, but I just cannot get on well with this deck. It feels like it’s so dependent on draw where if I draw on curve I’ll win, but if I don’t (which happens a lot) then there is little I can do.

I went from D9 3 stars, back to D10 no stars over an evening. Then when I went back to Quest Mage and won 3 games in a row.