job suggestions or ideas for a post-uni gap year?

Due to personal circumstances, I'm due to get my university degree result at the end of September. I had an offer with Teach First that has been deferred until next year, and I'm looking for advice/suggestions on what sort of jobs to fill my time with until I start. My parents suggested looking for graduate apprenticeships, but the vast majority of them are over 1 year long and are unsuitable for my situation.

Due to personal circumstances, I'm due to get my university degree result at the end of September. I had an offer with Teach First that has been deferred until next year, and I'm looking for advice/suggestions on what sort of jobs to fill my time with until I start. My parents suggested looking for graduate apprenticeships, but the vast majority of them are over 1 year long and are unsuitable for my situation.

I have a long list of ideas for gaps years, so I could easily end up writing an essay on this.

Instead, I would like to help narrow down the options by asking you:


Some of the ideas I have at the top of my head:
Teaching Assistant
There's nothing stopping you from doing a teaching assistant job for 1 year, especially when you're looking to get into the field. Usually, the job requires next to no qualifications, so your degree alone will more than suffice. The only problem is that they have a long winded vetting process (although for good reasons), and I don't know how much of your time it will eat up.

Tutoring
The alternative would be looking into tutoring people who are working their way up to GCSE and A Level exams. There's divided opinion on what is required to get into this, so I can only tell you to do your due diligence before attempting.

Teaching English as a Foreign Language
I recommend getting a teaching certificate for this, but in some countries you can get away with no qualifications at all.
If you do intend to do a qualification, I would recommend CELTA or Trinity College's CertTESOL. If you go and do these qualifications at your local colleges, they would usually take a year to do and can cost £1500. If you do them online and really shop around, you can do them for £1000 and complete them within a month. (Why is there such a discrepancy? Who knows.)

Failing all of the above, you can use ChatGPT to give you a long list of suggestions. However, you would need to be very specific about your requirements, including the fact that you live in the UK (or which town you live in if you're really picky).

If you can be more specific about what you're looking for, I can help a lot more with the suggestions.

I would defo recommend online tutoring. I tutor for explore learning as an online maths and English tutor and im 18 so surely you could get the position also. theres a tutoring company called purple HR and they pay around 15-20 pounds an hour. check them out on indeed.

Hey, thanks so much for responding! Here are the specificities you've asked for:

What do you intend to do at Teach First? (Might as well make it relevant to your line of work)
--> I intend to become a teacher. Progress up to senior management eventually, but currently, I definitely intend to become a teacher. However, experience in something vaguely related to school administration would interest me too.
[*]What are your interests? (No point in recommending something that would bore you)
--> Music is my main interest (hence the degree), but I would enjoy anything to do with working with people. I'm more than happy to keep my options open; I'm fairly flexible and since its only a year I need to get work for I'm positive there's nothing that I couldn't handle for a year.
[*]Did you have any back up plans in terms of what sort of careers that you want to do? (Some qualifications can be done in under a year, and a number of jobs don't require any specific qualifications)
--> I didn't have any solid back up plans, but I had a part-time job as an unqualified carer at university. I also was a student ambassador, working with tech delivery and assistance for one year during the transition to blended learning in classrooms. I've had a lot of work experience as an administrative assistant since leaving school. I've also done a lot of work planning events in societies for a year. I also considered getting CIPD qualifications to work in HR as a back up.
[*]Do you have a bucket list of things you want to do? (Might as well get some of them out of the way)
--> There's the obvious one: travel. But I'd rather be based locally, staying near my family, and choose to travel abroad on holidays. But experiences that would push me out of my comfort zone is a goal of mine. I'm quite an anxious person, but I'm trying to overcome that, which I believe pushing myself would do.

I'm grateful for your help and suggestions so far, friend!

[*]I intend to become a teacher. Progress up to senior management eventually, but currently, I definitely intend to become a teacher. However, experience in something vaguely related to school administration would interest me too.
Then I am a little curious to why you didn't jump straight into a PGCE/PGDE. They are really short on teachers at the moment.
The list of recommendations that I have previously provided should more than be suitable then. Giving music lessons is something you can often do, but you can also look into creating your own online courses.
As a teacher, you can often be teaching more than one subject. What is the secondary subject that you would intend to teach at some point?

Music is my main interest (hence the degree), but I would enjoy anything to do with working with people.
[*]

Qualifications that you can look into getting:
[*]

But experiences that would push me out of my comfort zone is a goal of mine. I'm quite an anxious person, but I'm trying to overcome that, which I believe pushing myself would do.
I don't know what's within your comfort zone then. Is it anything not to do with people?
I could say that you should pick up a course on AI, since it could potentially revolutionise how education is taught in the near future. However, that could be something already well in your comfort zone.
I have come across a musician/taught music who was also a grounds keeper and a waiter. However, I think he was grossly under utilising what he knows and what he could potentially get into.