What do you work as?

I work as a scientist in a University. I think it’s a good career for autistic people. many things traditionaly seen as weaknesses become strengths in scientific research. Obsessive attention to detail. Bottom up thinking. An extremely narrow focus. A willingness to question the received wisdom.

I am in that ball park but am a IT/electronic engineer. Orginally trained in the late 80's  but the electronic stuff changed massivley when I was out of the industry for about 5 years in the 90s. After a while I slipped into fixing printers, laptops, desktops and servers. Now just fix photocopiers which are pretty complex. I visit about 5 customers a day, almost all schools. I go to several 'special' schools where I am worried they wont let me out LOL. I don't find the interaction an issue as I have bluffed my way through for years. Finding the technical side more difficult as last job I was the senior guy and could cover up my screw ups, now have a guy above me who thinks I am a robot and should never make mistakes. Used to love the job but now can't wait to give it up next year and start semi-retirement.

I think it halps having a very logical and emotion free brain to do fault finding. I am not that interested in people so can block out stuff going on around me. I enjot the driving part, thats my down time. I do get frustrated by things that seem difficult and thats where I just try and bodge things, tend to make a mess and get my anxiety levels up, but thats maybe once every couple of weeks.

A useful, mobile hat stand.

Started my working life as a teacher (11-16 yr olds) which I did for 20+ years until the final burnout (undiagnosed Autism at the time).

Now I work for a delivery company. I pootle about delivering things in a van, while listening to podcasts / music.

I am fortunate that the earnings from the first career, and good financial decision making, allows me to take a much lower salary.

I think you made the right call with catering. I have a sister who does that, she's not autistic, but she says it's manic and you get a lot of shouting from customers and the head chef can sometimes be a bit of a gimp.

An electrician would be a fun job I bet. And if you're self employed if you took that route it would be less stress as well. I love electrics and fixing them, I self taught myself on YouTube to do electrics, might be worth checking that out for some guidance?

I do up classic cars and own a Vauxhall Senator on which the electrics are a total nightmare but I do them myself now and they are working, for the time being!

I hope this helps and more so I hope you can get into the field you want and enjoy yourself.

I am glad to hear you have found something that works for you, It's just the mindset I have currently. I am hoping to find something that can help me fulfil what I wanna do in life. At one point in school, I was thinking of getting into catering.

But I dropped out the sixth I was because I disliked it a lot due the not having much structure with lessons, I understand that working is not for everyone as some people with Autism get overwhelmed and have big meltdowns. 

Thank you for your advice Danny!

I work in a school with young children. I'm a part of a great team and my autism aids me in a lot of ways. I'm eccentric and childish, in a good way that the children relate well to. I'm a natural mimic and able to do voices for the children and I have an excellent imagination which is fun for role playing games and story time.

Prior to this I was working in an opticians but this wasn't ideal and led to me experiencing burnout multiple times and then a mental breakdown. A school is a much better environment for me. The biggest struggle I've had so far is with the noise, it's not easy to deal with but I'm doing all right so far.

One of the best bits of advice I've received with working is to make sure you take time out for yourself and remember that it's ok if you can't work. 

I am a social worker. Before that I worked in labouring and care work. Working as a labouer was hard work and money wasn't good. Sometimes I wish I had done training as a plumber or mechanic 

That does seem fun, I love politics if my local MP ever stood down I might get involved and see if I could join my local party and help people in my local community and make better awareness for people with Autism. 

That's great! I am glad that the job has worked out for you! But I don't think it would fit me as I don't have the greatest people skills known to mankind. I can have a short temper and be easily triggered.

Yeah, I would have to think about it and make sure what I wanna do, I just have the feeling sitting at home for the rest of my life isn't for me I get bored when not keeping myself busy with stuff. 

I could never do anything like that, I am a lot better at doing tasks with my hands rather than thinking about stuff. I am intelligent but get overwhelmed when thinking a lot about tasks. 

I'm a Bid Writer and a councillor. I am the most impractical person in the world. Give me an essay to write, and I'll do it! Ask me to fix a broken object, and I won't!

Hi I don't work as an electrician, I am a receptionist for a local council and do full time (36 hrs a week) - got a decent(ish) 29k salary (which still surprises me as I am only 24)

From personal experience I have been able to hold down jobs OK (longest was 2 ½ yrs doing part time administration work) and have had support plans and such to help me with work as I suffer from clinical depression aswell and panic attacks 

Sometimes I do struggle with masking and talking about my autism mainly due to childhood abuse and such but have mentioned to my manager and a few colleagues who have supported me

It's really strange because I am not a people person but have been used to adapting a customer service like tone in a professional way as I've done admin work for nearly 3 yrs now

I am not an electrician. My father was an electrician, from leaving school. He was autistic. He was able to work as self-employed, which I think suited him well enough, as he was able to set his owns terms.

On the other hand, he suffered from PDA and wasn't always great at finishing tasks on time,, that was just him. 

In his lifetime he had more than one self-employed business. He declared himself bankrupt from the first when I was a small child, so it didn't always work out, for him. However, later on he was more successful. 

I think electrician could be a good job, think about whether you might like to work as self-employed, contractor for big companies or direct employee, all will bring their own pros and cons and what might suit you best will depend on your own strengths. 

Good Luck!

I write regulatory documentation for medical devices. I started out doing product testing and the part I was the best at was writing the reports, so I moved into report-writing full-time and regulation was where the jobs were (and still are). I really like it because there's a lot of routine and stability, but I still get to learn a lot of new things.

Being an electrician sounds like a great job for an autistic person- we tend to be good at imagining things like how systems fit together and we like to be thorough, which are really important skills for working with electricity safely.

I’m a university student studying MPharm. When i graduate I will be training to become a registered pharmacist hopefully. What drew me is that I really like medicines and ever since I was young I enjoyed reading ingredients lists and just reading everything. The good thing about my field is that , it is flexible in terms of when and where I work. I can work part time, full time or locum :) Also, there are some options for online work. I just like the flexibility it offers combined with my scientific personality. 

i really like that you enjoy working with your hands and seeing the end result can be indeed rewarding. I’m so happy it’s something you enjoy 

Erwin said:

What do you do for work, and how did you find your way into your current profession?

I renovate old flats that have been very neglected and make them both functional and desirable - pretty much all the trades can be done by me by I subcontract the time consuming ones where cost effective and oversee the work.

I've been doing this full time for a year, part time for 4 years before that and before that, 32 years working in IT.

I was drawn to the work as I always like working with my hands (used to do a lot of hardware repairs on the side when I worked in IT) and my family have a history of working in the trade although not currently.

For me it feels really rewarding to learn a skill and apply it to the point it is better than most tradespeople can do it - not quite mastery but as good as you would want.

The two areas I still need to work on a lot are plastering and carpentry - I can do both passibly but I lack the co-ordination for plastering a rough wall well and carpentry needs a level of precision that I still need to develop.

Somehow being able to do all these tasks makes me feel better about my social shortcomings - I can let my abilities do the talking rather than have to gain acceptance through just talking. Probably an overcompensation thing, but it works well for me financially as this allowed me to retire at 55 to Brazil where I'm doing the same thing.

Erwin said:

Feel free to share any advice

Let other people share the financial risk if you are doing property flipping as a business. The market in the UK looks quite unpredictable so don't put your own resources on the line unless you have to.

If you are working on a job basis, make sure you get a deposit too - the number of cases of non payment I heard of last year from my network was silly - with a deposit you are able to cover some of your exposure. Also make the customer pay for materials to save that possible expense.