Brighton woman leaves NHS to become a tradeswoman - and has "never looked back"

A woman who spent her entire life working for the NHS has left the health service - and says her life has never been better.

Lisa Mailer from Brighton went to university at 18 and then worked in health and social care for seven years before progressing to working as an occupational therapist in the NHS for five years.

Now 41, and after years of high stress and burnout, she made the decision to switch careers to work as a tradeswoman. Now, she makes around £10,000 more a year and her mental health and work-life balance has significantly improved.

She said: "I loved that no five minutes were ever the same, let alone day to day. But we were always understaffed. We should have had four people in my team, but often it was just me. I became very stressed and I often needed to be off sick because of it.

"The NHS runs on the empathy and kind-heartedness of everyone who works there – I went in early and came home late and it was just unsustainable."

After a conversation with one of her friends who was a builder, she started working for him part-time, while continuing to work as an occupational therapist.

Now, she works full-time on her trades business, Busybee Handywoman, tackling large-scale projects such as fitting new bathrooms and kitchens.

It comes as new research from Rated People suggests that 32 per cent of people in the UK are considering a career change this year

"I learned everything from him – starting on smaller jobs and progressing to full property renovations. After working for him for less than a year, I started speaking to other tradespeople and I met some incredible tradeswomen who told me about the opportunities in the industry. This was brilliant inspiration for what I could achieve in the industry, so I started to take on independent jobs.

"For really complex projects, I’d subcontract some of the work to the contacts I’d made in the industry and I learned so much from working with them and watching them.

"My customers love the fact I’m a woman and I have an all-women team. I’ve built up a really solid customer base and I’ve never looked back.

"If you’re thinking of switching careers, start out slowly – do it part-time at first, if you can, so you still have financial stability. Speak to as many people as you can who are already in the industry and learn from them. You’ll have more transferrable skills than you think.”