alicewales

tl;dr: I'm a low-paid public sector administrative worker with some unutilised technical skills. I want to pivot away from admin work and go into RF/radio engineering, a field that I've had a long-standing interest in.

It's not a field that's totally unknown to me, otherwise I wouldn't be considering it. I've had an amateur radio licence and been active since I was a teenager - a full UK licence, not the Foundation ones that they hand out now. I've designed my own antennas, built and repaired my own kit, organised DXpeditions, I'm experimenting with SDR. It's something I have a genuine interest in.

I'm not the sort of person who considers any kind of work 'beneath me' otherwise I wouldn't be doing this in the first place. Work is work, a means to an end. I just don't feel like insecure, non-technical, paper-shuffling public sector administrative work is really the best use of my skill set and aptitudes.

RF engineering seems like a field with a future and a bit more security. I mean, there's very little these days that doesn't have a radio of some kind inside it. I'm just not sure how to get into it as a professional career, what qualifications I'd need, that sort of thing. I have A-levels even though I have no degree, but my A-levels aren't in the sciences because at 16 I was convinced I wanted to be a journalist. Is it something you need to go to university and get a degree to do, or are there more vocational qualifications or apprenticeships you can do instead? As far as I can tell, the degree route would require a three-year BSc in electrical engineering or similar, followed by an MSc to specialise in the radio side of things.

Is this a path anyone else here has taken? What routes are there into this kind of career? It really feels like the thing I want to do to feel more challenged, more fulfilled, in order to get out of being everyone's assistant and into a role where I actually am something. Thanks all so much in advance for your help!