What do you work as?

If you are really athletic, with no fear of heights and little fear of dying horribly, I would advice a career of maintenance man for the wind turbines. It's incredibly well paid, requires a lot of technical skills and a willingness to do one of the most dangerous civilian jobs in the world. 

If you fear heights but do not fear death, underwater welder is also a good match. Again. you need to be young, in peak health and not much afraid of dying.

At the moment, I am working in IT. I can say that the IT world is very ASD-friendly, especially because about 75% of the techs are deeply in the spectrum. The chief of IT security in my company looks like a deranged version of Richard Stallman, he won't be employable anywhere else. The pay is crap, and sometimes you have to deal with a lot of corporate inanity. Consider working in IT only if you could stomach living in a Dilbert strip 24/7

I used to be an electrical/multiskill engineer in factories. The job is good, but only if you do not suffer from sensory issues. It's always too hot or too cold, too cramped or working at heights, extremely loud or silent as a tomb. Sometimes you have to work with pretty rough people. The job is also physically tiring, with long shifts and a lot of heavy lifting and climbing.

All in all, I just loved my job. I had to leave due to health reasons, but I loved it. The pay is also extremely good, there is a big shortage of trained engineers. You should be prepared to move, factories are usually in pretty remote places.

I would advice you to start with a B-Tec and then add some C&G electrical installation courses. Maybe a 18th edition qualification. An apprenticeship would be the best, but it is not easy to get it.

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 also ‘insanely’ good at mimicking voices according to my friends. I don’t think i’m that good until i hear a recording of myself then i get scared realising that’s actually me. 

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.

Your job seems so cool!

I don't work as an electrician, sorry! My dad does though, he's done it since he was 19, he loves his work.

I work in radio, tv and games as a voice actor. Since I was a child I've always been able to mimic others voices and I grew up absolutely loving tv and films, especially Disney! I can mimic so many voices it seemed the perfect job for me to use them on radio and as a voice actor. According to my assessors during my assessment being able to mimic is common in autistic people.

My work is wonderful, I love every second of it and I get to do it all from home 90% of the time!  

The biggest struggle i have with my work is having to do phone calls with employers, scripters and my agent. This is my least fave part of this work. Sometimes there's videos as well on Teams which I find unbearable lol. But other than that it's amazing.