If you’re thinking about a career, either to help you form a foundation for your decisions about subject choices and eventual degree courses, or as an alternative to a job path that’s proving stale, you need to think about lots of different factors: pay, qualifications but also what motivates you. Some people are motivated by money (more so than others. We all need a paycheck to make ends meet!), which makes sales roles ideal as they provide monetary bonuses based on performance. Some people are looking for personal development, so roles that allow them to learn, grow and take on additional responsibilities are the ones that will make them happiest.
Others are looking for jobs that let them have an effect on the world and the people around them, measuring their job satisfaction in the difference they make. A lot of these people are drawn to work as doctors, nurses and other workers for the National Health Service, but it’s not the only option.
Her Majesty’s Prisons and the Criminal Justice System are a major employer and predate the NHS – the Health Service was created from a number of different insurance schemes and private doctors in the wake of the second world war, whereas prisons have been in existence since time immemorial.
There are any number of jobs you can take in supporting justice, and while some of them may be stressful or under-resourced, they do all provide that vital knowledge when you lay down in bed for the night, that you’ve spent the day working hard and have had a concrete and positive effect on people’s lives.
They aren’t all prison warden jobs. The prison service needs all sorts of different skills and even if your background is in procurement you’ll have a place to help support the efforts of a vital organisation. This needn’t diminish your sense of contribution to the operation: the system needs pencils, uniforms, toilet rolls and heating, in order to operate properly so you’re a vital cog in a vital machine.
Another advantage of looking at justice and prisons when you’re considering a career is that it opens up jobs across the UK. If you’re looking for Criminal Justice jobs, London has plenty to offer, but so do towns and cities across the UK. This means if your circumstances change and you want or need to move, you have the experience and internal contacts to find a new job in the right place much more smoothly than someone who’d have to resign and interview with entirely new companies elsewhere.