A confession. 

I’ve not hidden the fact that I started a Masters (in neuroscience) a year ago. I’ve not properly explained the rationale. As with so much in my life, it’s complex. People ask me why I made ‘X’ lifestyle change and they get a disquisition rather than a snappy one-liner.

In this case, it’s partly that I wanted to gain more expertise in mental health to better understand the challenges my kids are facing in the education system. It’s partly a growth mindset – I’ve just got an orientation always to be learning and finding ways to stretch my perspectives. And I thought it might somehow bring a new dimension to the day job. There’s also something about me being bad about taking time for myself unless I attach a tangible goal to it, as my therapist has pointed out. Why can’t I just do yoga?!

But the confession part – it’s also because I’m also a planner by nature, and the colliding forces of economic stagnation, the AI transformation and geopolitical uncertainty have got me wondering about long-term career security. I always want options. I don’t want to contemplate a scenario where I make myself unemployable and undesirable but realise I could possibly have prevented it, if only I’d made the right moves to shore up my resilience.  

Of course, redundancy may still happen, and this is not a slight on anyone who experiences it, because it is categorically not about them, it’s about their businesses and the market environment. 

It’s just – like many of us, I’ve got a mortgage to pay. By today’s standards, I’m actually very privileged in this respect. But still, I’ve got a mortgage to pay, and kids who steadfastly resist the idea of moving house, especially if it means living in closer quarters with each other, because brothers are annoying. Plus, a cat who is living her absolute best life 24/7 stalking mice in the park opposite our house, and who is basically in charge anyway. 

In this line of work, like many, you do kind of need to have a passion and a commitment to be attractive – whether as an agency professional or employee. So, it’s an uncomfortable position to be in if you still have that passion in you, but you wonder how much longer it might have a home in the sector you’re in. Doubts can dim passion.

The answer has been clarifying for me recently. In responding to brilliant briefs. In having stimulating discussions with clients and colleagues. And in attending the MRS Excellence Awards, where I had the opportunity to see various old friends and make new ones.

I don’t doubt that there is ageism in research, as in many sectors. I mean, you just need to think about how endemic it is to cut off sample specs for many studies at 45 or 55. Long before theoretical retirement age for many of us. But one benefit of having been around a while by now is having accumulated a wide network of friends – ex-colleagues, peers, client-siders I’ve never worked with and perhaps never will.

Attending sector events, and participating in sector initiatives, is all unquestionably beneficial. Not for cold-eyed ‘networking’, but for building up a depth of relationships that may or may not bear some form of fruit in the future, but in the meantime just help any of us feel more connected.

In an atomised, AI-first world, human connection matters more than ever, but is harder to do well. We do online meetings as the default. We sometimes bury ourselves working solo for supposed efficiency.  Sector occasions and projects that lift us all out of our individual roles and our little silos – and help us to see how others are wrestling with the same challenges – always make me feel good.

So on the career plan B, I’ll keep it ticking along. Perhaps at some point down the line I’ll want a radical change. But for now, I’d find it incredibly hard to let go of the satisfaction of the work I do. And to say goodbye to feeling part of a community that I’ve spent rather a long time in.

We’re a peculiar bunch in research. In the best possible way. We have empathy, creativity, rigour and commitment in spades. Maybe this collection of brains we have means that we’re not always the most cynically commercial sector, and this is a challenge in today’s market landscape. We absolutely need to get better at selling our value, and in the process, letting go a little of celebrating how much we love the craft. 

People don’t care so much about that any more. It’s got to be about outcomes and impact. The how matters less, the end result matters more. To thrive in the evolving business context, we need to be harder-edged, more precise on our value add, more agile.

But at the same time, we’re a pretty nice bunch of people. It doesn’t always come easily to us to show that harder edge. For me, there’s something in that. If we trace back to why we got into this line of work, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the motivation was in the journey rather than the destination. We enjoy the doing.  

Many of us enjoy the human side. I feel like these are my people. So the career plan B can wait.