For teachers considering leaving the profession and/or at least stepping out of the classroom, a portfolio or mosaic career is certainly a strong option. But what are they and how do they differ? And how do you know which option is right for you? In this two-part blog, I share my understanding of the two paths and point out the potential benefits and drawbacks of both.
Part 1: What is a Portfolio Career?
A portfolio career is a diverse approach where a person takes on multiple roles to create a flexible and adaptable income stream. The basic premise is the individual taking on various part-time jobs, freelance work, or short-term contracts to create a ‘portfolio’ of income sources and experiences. Unlike a traditional job, which centres around one employer and a set of responsibilities, a portfolio career includes diverse roles, often across different industries, allowing you to leverage a range of your skills and interests. For example, a teacher might transition into a portfolio career by tutoring, working as a part-time manager of a doctor’s surgery (or some other office) and freelance book-keeping. The emphasis is on balancing multiple revenue streams rather than committing to one specific path or full-time position.
Benefits of a Portfolio Career
- Flexibility to Experiment: Teachers moving out of the classroom may not have a clear idea of their next step. A portfolio career offers the freedom to try different types of work and gauge where their skills and interests align best. For instance, a former teacher could explore roles like online tutoring, office work, content creation, or consulting, gradually discovering which areas feel the most fulfilling.
- Utilising Transferable Skills: Teaching equips us with a broad range of skills – communication, organisation, instructional design, and management to name but a few. In a portfolio career, teachers can use these abilities across varied roles, such as working in a library, teaching yoga, or freelance writing, without having to commit fully to a new field immediately.
- Diversified Income Streams: One of the biggest appeals of a portfolio career is financial resilience. Rather than relying on a single income source, you can build multiple revenue streams. For example, part-time tutoring, online course development, or freelance projects can supplement each other, providing financial security during the transition period and beyond.
- Space to Recuperate and Re-create: For some teachers, changing career is a necessity for both physical and emotional reasons. They feel broken and may even be traumatised and/or paralysed by fear. Building a portfolio career step by step can allow a gentle return to work allowing confidence and other aspects of wellbeing to bubble back to the surface.
- Room for Growth and Learning: Portfolio careers allow you to try multiple fields and gain exposure to different industries. As you explore, you can learn more about what excites you and gradually narrows your focus, making it easier to transition into a more specialised area, if desired, later.
Potential Drawbacks of a Portfolio Career
- Lack of Stability: While diverse income sources are an advantage, they can also mean less predictability. Without a single, steady salary, you can find yourself managing fluctuating incomes, which can be challenging, especially if you are accustomed to the financial stability of a traditional teaching job.
- Self-Management Challenges: A portfolio career requires a high degree of self-discipline and time management. Juggling multiple roles means coordinating schedules, deadlines, and responsibilities across various employers or clients. As a teacher used to structured days, this adjustment might be overwhelming at first although, as we know, teaching also requires us to be agile and expert in managing last minute changes!
- Potential Isolation: Teaching is collaborative, involving regular interaction with colleagues and students. A portfolio career, particularly with freelance or remote roles, can be isolating. If you thrive on interpersonal connection, you may find it necessary to seek networking opportunities, or some kind of community involvement, to stay socially engaged.
- Limited Benefits: Traditional teaching jobs come with benefits like paid holidays, National Insurance contributions and pension scheme, which portfolio careers often lack. Teachers transitioning to a portfolio career should be prepared to manage these aspects independently, whether through part-time positions that offer benefits or by setting up personal insurance and retirement plans.
Teachers contemplating starting a portfolio career don’t have to do it all at once. Identifying skills that are transferable to other fields is a useful starting point. From there, try out short-term freelance work or side projects to gain experience. Dipping your toe in the water with a few hours per week of tutoring (or supply teaching) is a common way for a teacher to launch a portfolio career. Then begin building a network in the areas of work that interest you (see Informational Interviews as a way of doing this). Securing a part-time (say, two days a week) job of any kind also gets the portfolio career underway (you can always drop this initial role once you’ve refined your ideas).
A portfolio career has the potential to provide you with a flexible way to explore new opportunities whilst leveraging your existing skills. It requires careful planning and an openness to change but there’s no doubt this career path can lead to a really fulfilling post-teaching career journey that offers variety and ultimately allows for greater autonomy.
Part 2: What is a Mosaic Career? Coming soon ….
Photo by RhondaK Native Florida Folk Artist on Unsplash