Good on you for wanting to break out of this situation. Being unemployed has a huge, detrimental impact on wellbeing (and finances) and it can be really hard to get the motivation to change things. Take heart that in the 70’s/80’s only 1 in 7 people got a degree and nowadays it’s 1 in 2 so it no longer gets doors open in the same way it might have in your parents generation. I know someone with a PhD that’s working as a teaching assistant (a job it’s possible get with a handful of GCSE’s) so try not to get disheartened if you don’t walk straight into the job of your dreams! Life is a very winding road and there’s lots of ways to get to a destination. In fact, you might even change your mind (several times) on the destination!
You will have lots of good qualities that you need to remind yourself of. As soon as you can, start some volunteering to boost your confidence/people skills/experience. It would help you to have a recent referee for your CV and you might also learn about which elements you definitely do or don’t want from a job.
The national careers service can help you with ideas, courses and improving your CV. Whether you are on benefits or not, the job centre may also be able to support you with these things too.
Careers advice - job profiles, information and resources | National Careers ServiceThere are 3 main sections on this website.
The
skills health check will ask you multiple questions and will help you to identify appropriate career paths based on your responses.
The
explore careers page will help identify the specific entry requirements for different jobs and will suggest the best routes into these careers.
The
find a course page will help you to identify training providers that offer the necessary qualifications you might need to progress into your chosen career.
There’s also a lot of smaller, online courses you could do at often low(ish) cost or even free. These can be done over a few days or weeks and will quickly boost your CV and chances of getting a job sooner (not necessarily a career for life, but a job for the moment) Things like computer skills, first aid, food hygiene, health and safety etc.
Wishing you the best of luck in your immediate (and long term) future endeavours
