Using Redundancy as a Career Change
Redundancy is the only moment in most careers where you get money and time at the same moment. That combination is exactly what a career change requires, and it arrives precisely when you are least equipped to think clearly about it.
Some people use it well. Others make a decision in week two that they regret in month eight. The difference is mostly about sequencing.
Do Not Decide Anything in the First Fortnight
The instinct after redundancy splits two ways. Some people apply for forty jobs immediately to make the anxiety stop. Others decide within days that this is the sign to do something completely different.
Both are reactions rather than decisions. Give it a couple of weeks before committing to a direction, and use that time on the practical work instead: sorting the payment, checking your entitlements, understanding your finances, and updating your CV.
The urgency you feel in week one is almost never matched by your actual financial position, which is worth calculating precisely rather than feeling vaguely.
Get the Financial Facts Straight
Before any decision, know four numbers.
Your total redundancy payment, and how much of it is tax free. In the UK, statutory and contractual redundancy pay is generally tax free up to £30,000, with pay in lieu of notice and holiday pay taxed as normal earnings.
Your notice period and whether you are working it or being paid in lieu. Working it means income continues while you search, which is valuable.
Your genuine monthly minimum outgoings, not your current spending.
How many months the payment plus savings covers at that minimum.
That last figure is your runway, and it determines everything else. A three month runway and a fourteen month runway lead to completely different strategies.
Check What You Are Entitled To
Beyond the payment itself, several things are commonly missed.
Statutory redundancy pay if you have two years of continuous service. Notice pay. Accrued holiday. Any contractual enhancement, which may be considerably more generous than statutory.
Outplacement support, which many larger employers fund and which people frequently decline out of pride. It typically includes CV help, coaching and job search support, and it is worth taking.
Benefits. New Style Jobseeker’s Allowance is based on National Insurance contributions rather than savings, so having a redundancy payment in the bank does not necessarily exclude you. Check rather than assuming.
Your pension. Understand what happens to it and resist the temptation to touch it if you possibly can.
Then Ask the Real Question
Once the practical work is done, the question is whether to return to what you know or change direction.
Return to the same field if you were good at it and enjoyed it, if the sector is stable, and if you can get back in quickly. There is no virtue in changing career for its own sake, and a fast return protects your runway.
Consider changing if the redundancy was part of a structural decline in your sector, if you had been thinking about it for a while already, or if the runway genuinely supports a transition.
The honest test is whether you were considering this before the redundancy. A change you had been contemplating for two years is a plan. A change you thought of last Tuesday is a reaction.
The Hybrid Approach
For most people the right answer is not either or.
Look for work in your existing field while you test the new direction. That keeps income possible and removes the pressure that makes people take bad decisions, while still moving the change forward.
If a role in the old field comes up first, take it. A career change made from employment is far easier than one made from unemployment, because you have income, confidence and a current job title. Our guide on testing a new career before you commit covers how to run the exploration alongside work.
Use the Time Deliberately
If you do have runway, the weeks after redundancy are unusually valuable, and they disappear extremely fast if unstructured.
Set a weekly shape. A fixed number of applications, specific hours for learning or training, and time for the networking conversations that are much harder to arrange once you are working again.
Also use the moment for the conversations you would not normally have. People are notably willing to help someone who has just been made redundant, and reaching out to former colleagues, clients and contacts in the first month produces more responses than at any other time.
Rewriting the CV
Whichever direction you choose, the CV needs work, and redundancy is a good reason to do it properly rather than adding a line to an old file.
If you are staying in your field, focus on recent delivery and make sure the redundancy is presented as the business decision it was. If you are changing, rebuild around transferable evidence. Our guides on writing a career change CV and explaining a career change to employers both apply.
Look After the Non-Financial Part
Redundancy affects confidence in a way that shows up in interviews, and it is worth naming that to yourself.
Keep a routine, keep some structure to the week, and tell people what has happened rather than managing it privately. The isolation does more damage than the event, and the people who come through it well are almost always the ones who stayed connected to others while they worked it out.
