Mandy Garner

To start with, let's take a step back and look at the average lifespan of people in the UK from 1971 to 2011 along with the average age people start having children.

focused on making the profession more flexible in order to attract younger people. It recommended, for instance, secondments to other sectors. But it's not just young people who might want greater flexibility in their workplace, whatever that might mean for them, and opportunities to take time out and try other options.

Yesterday morning I got an email from my former university. Ping! It asked me to take part in a survey about AI and journalism. Despite the fact that it assumed I was working for the kind of regular newsroom I have not been in for years, I decided to take part. It was an interesting experience. It asked me lots of questions about what I thought about AI, but mainly about whether I used it and for what.

What do you want to do job-wise and how will it fit around family life? Having children is a whirlwind, stirring up all sorts of thoughts and emotions amid the total exhaustion. Often you can go around and around in your mind for years the whole issue of finding a way of working that works around family life. That can mean switching jobs, careers, setting up on your own and all sorts.

The survey is part of a report by the think tank which seeks to flesh out how a new ‘right to switch off', promised by Labour, might work.

Natasha Paling used to work in financial services, but after taking a career break to look after her children she transitioned to teaching and hasn't looked back. She has just been named Teacher of the Year in a national competition in recognition of her work to support her pupils, school and community.

The campaign is the brainchild of dads Alex Lloyd Hunter and George Gabriel. George had his daughter just over a year ago and benefited from four months of paid paternity leave at Meta.

Despite the post-Covid move to more flexible working, many mums are struggling to get the flexibility they need, with 56% either considering or planning to go self employed to get more flexibility and some doing more than one job for the same reasons. 47% are looking to change sectors to get greater flexibility or to progress their careers, according to workingmums.co.uk's annual survey.

The underlying desire for freelance work is increasing due to technological advancements and greater demand for work life balance and control and employers' return-to-office mandates may drive more workers towards freelancing, according to the head of a freelancing management organisation, but freelancers need support to navigate the AI currents.

Tesse Akpeki has years of experience in governance, having started in the field when it was still developing. She was delighted to then be headhunted to run the governance development programme of a City law firm and has since gone freelance as a consultant.