Top Opportunities for Career Changers – These 12 professions are the most attractive right now

Cobbler stick to your last is an old saying – it has never been as wrong as it is today. In times of structural change and an aging population, mass career changes are not only socially necessary. They are also a smart choice for thousands of workers and can boost careers even at an advanced age.

There are enough opportunities to do so. Because in view of the shortage of skilled workers and new, up-and-coming industries, employers have to be more flexible than ever before. "If they want to fill their vacancies, employers are forced to think laterally," says Robindro Ullah, managing director of the market research company Trendence Institute. Many now offer retraining programs themselves - and from day one they not only pay a training allowance, but also a handsome salary.

Workers, on the other hand – including the well-trained ones – are surprisingly open to making the switch. In a representative survey conducted by the Trendence Institute among almost 5,000 specialists and academics, a change of professional field is an option for the vast majority.

62 percent of employees with a university degree and 60 percent of specialists stated that they were open to retraining with a cold start in a different field. There are no comparative figures for previous years. "The level of willingness to change also surprised us," says Ullah.

In order for well-trained people to actually dare to start over, the circumstances have to be right. The main reasons for seeking vocational retraining are the desire for a higher salary (64 percent), more free time (34 percent) and a change of location (26 percent).

In any case, the negotiating position of employees is better than ever in many professional fields. It's no wonder that companies make tempting offers for career changers. WELT presents twelve professions in which a new start can succeed.

18 months of training in data analysis - and that with full payment. The Stackfuel platform offers this combination together with customers such as the IT service provider Compusafe.

In online training, participants learn how to analyze and clearly process large amounts of data. In many companies today, this is required as a basis for management decisions.

There are no strict formal entry requirements for the program. According to Stackfuel, what counts in the selection process is a high level of self-motivation, a strong will, logical thinking, an interest in statistics and data, and a good knowledge of German or English. Lateral entrants are expressly desired.

Learning to program within twelve weeks - that's what the company Neue Fisch wants to make possible in its coding boot camps. The courses for prospective web and app developers, cloud developers or data analysts cost between 8500 and 9500 euros.

You can also be paid with the earnings of the first jobs after the camp. Founder Dalia Das transferred the boot camp model from the USA and is convinced that official study and training qualifications are also becoming less and less important in Germany.

What counts are social skills, motivation and the "craft" that is needed to work productively right away. She wants to convey this to around 1,200 participants in 2022 and has just joined forces with Berlin boot camp competitors Spiced Academy.

"Functional training" is the name of the retraining for career changers at Deutsche Bahn. If the candidates have completed vocational training, preferably technical, they can qualify as a dispatcher or engine driver within ten to twelve months.

More than 2600 euros monthly salary are already guaranteed in the training year. After that, an annual salary of up to 55,000 euros beckons, including allowances for possible night and weekend work.

Between 2,000 and 2,500 of these career changers are hired by Deutsche Bahn each year. In addition to an affinity for technology, a prerequisite is a special mental and physical fitness, which is checked by a company doctor during a fitness examination.

Because not only train drivers, but also dispatchers bear a lot of responsibility. They work on a signal box, where they set points and signals and thus navigate the trains through the rail network.

According to estimates by the German Kita Association, there is already a shortage of 100,000 educators in Germany. The Cologne IW has currently identified a gap of 200,000 people in the nursing staff.

It's no wonder that there are very different models for getting career changers interested in these professions. Depending on the federal state and program, the requirements, payment and division of the training into practical and vocational school days vary.

In Hamburg, for example, there is a rapid training program for socio-educational assistants. If the candidates already have a degree or training in nursing, as a physiotherapist or occupational therapist, they start the retraining with a monthly payment of 2900 euros and then complete 160 hours of theory and a year of practice - before they find a permanent position can be taken over.

Recruiters are people who recruit workers for companies. And in times of a shortage of skilled workers, they are in demand like never before.

The number of search ads on platforms like Indeed has increased by a whopping 50 percent since Covid, reports Trendence boss Ullah. This results in a sharply increased need for recruiters.

Their classic tasks include creating search profiles, placing job advertisements, addressing potential candidates in different ways and then selecting them through tests and interviews.

"In reality, however, it's less and less about selection and more and more about getting candidates interested in a job," says Ullah. "An engineer, for example, can approach other engineers wonderfully, and a kindergarten teacher is certainly particularly good at recruiting kindergarten teachers."

The various selection tools can be learned and companies are increasingly willing to pass them on to career changers. In any case, a decades-long career in human resources, including a degree in psychology, is no longer necessary to get top jobs there.

According to estimates by the ZDH, there is already a shortage of around 250,000 workers in the skilled trades. In view of the efforts to protect the climate, the shortage in individual occupational groups will become even greater.

Heating and air conditioning technicians who can install heat pumps and replace heaters are in demand. Electronics and energy technicians are required for the installation of solar roofs, charging stations for e-mobility and wind farms.

According to the Central Association of German Crafts (ZDH), “adults who have not sought or found their way into a craft apprenticeship from the start are wide open to crafts.

According to data from the Federal Employment Agency (BA), around 1,700 people completed subsidized retraining as electronics technicians in June 2022. Around 600 people worked as plant mechanics in sanitary, heating and air-conditioning technology.

There are now state funding opportunities for retraining in many areas. In 2019, the floridly named "Qualification Opportunities Act" came into force.

After that, the BA will no longer only cover the costs of further training for the unemployed or those with low qualifications. People in work are also supported. Prerequisite: You are preparing for the consequences of digital structural change or are aiming for one of the so-called bottleneck professions. And there are more and more of them in times of climate change, digitization and a shortage of nursing care.

The makers is the WELT career podcast. In the six-part special “Quoten-Frauen?!” the business journalists Inga Michler and Anja Ettel portray the powerful women who are fighting their way to the top of the Dax corporations.