What is a portfolio career?

A portfolio career is an exciting and exhilarating way to earn a living. There's never a dull moment and you don't have to be good at only one thing - you can be good at several and make a professional career out of it. It's not a new concept but it's still far from conventional. It means that you earn your living through multiple sources of income.

At its simplest, a portfolio career might include two part-time jobs but it can take many other forms. I've met doctors who combine medical practice with paid musicianship, freelance designers with part-time jobs in banking and part-time teachers running businesses unrelated to education.

I'm very inspired by the work of Sir Ken Robinson, who advocates for fundamental innovation in education and challenging what we assume is obvious. I believe this relates closely to the concept of portfolio careers which defy convention and call for a new way of living and working. Have a look at his TED Talk about the importance of letting natural talents flourish.

It's not a patch on Sir Ken's talk, but my talk at TEDxU Westminster explains my portfolio career philosophy in a bit more detail:

My portfolio career draws on experience I've gained since emerging from university in the year 2000. Since then I've gained an MA and MPhil and become a trained journalist and teacher. I've held senior citizenship education development posts, taught at university level and set up my own consultancy business and digital media agency.

We're all the sum of our experiences and the variety of my career to date has certainly given me plenty of those. From interviewing Tony Buzan (the popularizer of 'mind-mapping') to seeing young people blossom through imaginative and thought-provoking learning experiences, I've met and interacted with fascinating people from all walks of life. They have all contributed to the knowledge and experience that inform my portfolio career which consists of three main areas; design, communications and education.

Having a portfolio career gives me a great deal of flexibility as I can concentrate on or pull back from elements of it at different times (for example, the education side is quieter during holidays so I can take on larger projects than usual in other areas). I'm passionate about doing things well and a portfolio career helps me prioritise, adapt and maintain high standards in ways a conventional one-track career can't always allow.

There are of course challenges to wearing multiple hats and it requires a good set of organisational skills. Depending on what makes up your portfolio career you may have multiple administrative systems to work within, different locations to be in and completely different sets of clients and colleagues. Switching between them can mean there's no such thing as a daily routine anymore (which might be a breath of fresh air to some or the stuff of nightmares for others). All careers have challenges though and it's how we deal with them that makes us.

Not everyone is born with a vocation for just one thing and even those who are don't always get to do that thing for a living. In my view, a portfolio career gives opportunities for creativity and freedom that can add real richness to life, which translates into high quality work.

Find out more about what my portfolio career looks like.