How to balance a job and Uni
Reply 1
There are lots of options if you want to earn money while studying. A lot of students start with a zero-hours or seasonal job to test how many hours they can manage in the first few months of their studies. Others go straight into contracted part-time roles.
I personally started with 16 hours per week, working 8 hours over the weekend in a café, and found that manageable while adjusting to uni life. That said, it really depends on your own circumstances—if your course has placements, lab work, or anything beyond lectures, you’ll need to factor that in when deciding how much to work.
You could also look into student-specific roles, like working for your student union or being a student ambassador. These can be in person, for example helping out on open days, or remote, like writing posts on TSR, producing social media content, or writing student blogs.
Top tips for finding work:
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Sign up to your uni’s jobs platform as soon as you start—this could be something like Unitemps, Handshake, or a similar service for student-friendly jobs.
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Some employers have stands at the freshers’ fair, so it’s worth checking it out even if you’re there for clubs and societies.
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Start applying a week or two before uni begins using sites like Indeed, TotalJobs, CV Library, or Jobs.ac.uk.
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Dropping your CV into local cafés, shops, or independent businesses in person can work well, especially for places that don’t hire online.
Megan (LJMU Rep)
A lot of uni students have jobs.
If you do a set amount of hours per week, then you will know where you stand and can organise uni work, revision, social life etc.
You could always book holidays from work during exam time if you wanted.
Places like mcdonalds are very flexible. You can also usually transfer to a store near home if you wanted to and work there when at home from uni.
Reply 3
Hi, there are lots of different ways you can earn money while at uni and balance your time. We posted about it here if you would like to take a look: https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7658108&p=101149009
Reply 4
This are a few things that has helped me:
1. If you can, begin with fewer hours (around 6-8 per week) and see how you manage before taking on more. It’s much easier to increase hours later than to feel overwhelmed and have to cut back.
2. Plan around your deadlines. Try to organise shifts around lectures, rehearsals and assignment deadlines not the other way around. Your degree should always come first, especially during busy project periods.
3. Choose flexible roles. On-campus jobs are great because employers understand you’re a student and are usually more flexible during assessment weeks.
4. Use a calendar or planner. Having everything in one place, classes, shifts, deadlines, really helps avoid overbooking yourself and reduces stress.
5. Protect your rest time. Make sure you keep at least one proper break each week 💞
For example, I’m currently studying Theatre & Performance and working as a Student Ambassador, Front of House at AMATA, and an Employability Intern. What’s helped me most is staying organised, being realistic about how many hours I can handle, and communicating early if I have a heavy deadline week. It’s definitely manageable, it just takes planning and knowing when to say no sometimes.
You’ve got this 💛
Reply 5
If you do a set amount of hours per week, then you will know where you stand and can organise uni work, revision, social life etc.
You could always book holidays from work during exam time if you wanted.
Places like mcdonalds are very flexible. You can also usually transfer to a store near home if you wanted to and work there when at home from uni.
Thank you, I was panicking about how to financially begin supporting myself instead of just asking my parents
Yeah, a job is deffo worth looking for.
Reply 7
Hi there,
Here are some of my tips for balancing work and uni as I found this quite hard at first too!
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When you get a job, I would try and look for one which is flexible and where you can say when you have uni and are not free, so that they won't schedule you any shifts on these days. Most jobs will ask you for your availability so whenever you have uni you can tell them so that they can't schedule you on these days.
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Looking for jobs which have evening or weekend work is quite helpful as this won't clash with your uni at all so you can make sure you still make all of your classes, as well as getting your work done.
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Being organised is one of the main things that will help you. I like to make a schedule of my week, so I will write down everything that I need to get done that week and then see what time I have to get everything done. This also means that you can do fun things too and get uni work done!
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Make sure you get rest time too. Don't schedule something for every day if you can help it, as it is so important to get your rest in too and make time for yourself.
I hope some of this helps!
Lucy -SHU student ambassador 🙂
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