Although redundancy can be a shocking and emotional event, the one upside is that it can give you the freedom to change your life completely and do what you have always dreamed of doing, especially if you have been given a redundancy package.

As you wander down to the job centre to sign on in the first few weeks, you feel useless and unwanted, but as you start to see the opportunities to retrain it can be life-changing.

One fulfilling new career to consider if you are of a practical nature is retraining as an architect although it will not be easy as you will need to retrain completely at university.

Another one that is slightly easier to get into is project management in the building trade. If you have experience of any aspects of construction then this might be a viable career path which is worth looking into.

Another is engineering which covers any number of jobs and specialisations, such as civil engineering or materials engineering. If you have a bent for sciences and are willing to put in some hard study then it is achievable.

What I am saying is that if you are face with an unavoidable change of career, you need not think that you have to do what you have always done, as there is often something completely different around the corner.