The idea of picking one thing is impossible!

I can take elements from one project or role and weave it into the others.

Working in this way allows you to be holistic in your career.

Work becomes something you get up wanting to do.

My portfolio reflects who I am

This guide seeks to bust the myths and share the reality and diversity of portfolio careers through the stories of those already working this way. For allied health professionals, nurses and GPs, we describe the benefits and challenges of portfolio careers, how to thrive when working in this way, the practicalities of managing various roles and some word of wisdom from those who are already treading this path.

We hope you find it useful.

Content taken from Bristol, North Somerset & South Gloucestershire Training Hub but examples are from Dorset AHP’s in portfolio roles.

A guide to portfolio careers

What is a portfolio career?

Why choose a portfolio career?

Practicalities of a portfolio career

Common challenges and how to overcome them

Thriving in a portfolio career

Know your strengths

Finding your tribe

What is a Portfolio Career?

Portfolio careers are becoming more prevalent within the health sector as individuals seek flexibility, autonomy, and balance. The fluidity of portfolio careers means that the individuals can gain a breadth of skills, knowledge, and experience across a variety of roles and organisations.

Having a portfolio career is a way of working that combines different roles, jobs and income streams that suit your interests and your career and life aspirations. This might be a mix of part-time, fill-time, voluntary, self-employed, or freelancing work. It might be a combination of clinical, managerial, leadership, teaching, research, consultancy, or project-based roles. You might work within the NHS, in a private practice, with the third sector or with industry.

“Portfolio careers can provide a platform for opportunity and can bring enthusiasm and energy to your career”.

Common to all portfolio careers is the autonomy to choose what work you do and the skills to self-manage across your various roles and commitments. For many, their portfolios evolved over time as they considered different opportunities and sought to bring variety into their careers.

This guide gives real examples of portfolio careers, describing how they came about, what the different roles are and how they fit together across a working week. Each portfolio is unique to the individual and has come about through a combination of hard work, creative thinking, patience, and persistence.

Why Choose a Portfolio Career?

The motivation for choosing a portfolio career is wide and varied, so too are the benefits that people gain from working in this way. Often, individuals want to develop themselves and progress their career and can sometimes find this difficult to achieve within a traditional clinical working environment. Many of those who work in a portfolio way are looking to broaden their skill set and experience, to try different types of work whilst maintaining work-life balance. The flexibility of a portfolio career is attractive to many, alongside the control that comes with being able to choose roles that suit your current circumstance and life commitments.

“Having a mix of clinical and non-clinical roles replenishes my energy levels and makes me a better clinician”.

For many having a variety of roles within a portfolio can bring energy to their work and helps to balance the intensity and stress that come with challenging clinical positions. The variety and breadth of experience also enables individuals to appreciate the different challenges and opportunities across organisations.

Working for different organisations increases awareness and understanding how the wider health system fits together. It can present opportunities for building relationships and networks that enable individuals to bring skills and knowledge from one role to another and to share these with colleagues and patients.

I want to see different challenges in different areas.
I want to see the bigger picture by working in a variety of places.
I want the opportunity to meet and work with different people.
I like variety – I get bored easily.
I like the combination of different roles on different days.
I like the challenge that comes with doing a variety of roles.
I want to use different parts of my brain to do different things.
I’m curious to learn new things and different skills.
I have different interests, I couldn’t possibly pick one.

Practicalities of a Portfolio Career

Portfolio careers don’t come neatly packaged. They take time, energy, and commitment to create and maintain. Working for more than one employer means managing the logistics of more than one role and one organisation. Self-employment may also be part of the portfolio mix, which may mean relying on professional expertise for advice and guidance.

Knowing where to start can sometimes be a challenge. The simple checklist seeks to cover the basics in terms of key practicalities to take care of across your portfolio career. You will need to set time aside to deal with the admin that comes with a portfolio career.

I have more opportunities for progression.
I can develop my leadership skills.
I get a breadth of experience.
I can use my skills and learning across my different roles.
You can find a balance and see your children grow up.
You can work around taking care of yourself.
It can enhance your wellbeing and make you happy.
It gives you flexibility to work around your life commitments.
Every day is a learning opportunity.
The variety provides motivation and interest.
You meet more people, build your network and then more opportunities present themselves.

Portfolio Career Checklist

Be clear about your employment status and what your terms and conditions cover. Check that it permits you to work for other organisations. If you are self-employed, locum, agency, or doing a piece of freelance work you need to check your IR35 status – your professional body will be able to provide advice.

If your portfolio includes any self-employed, locum, agency, or freelance work it is likely you will need to complete an annual self-assessment tax return. You can check the Gov.uk website and your professional body for advice. Some choose to use the services of an accountant to complete their tax return, which typically costs between £150-£250 depending on how complex the finances are.

You may wish to consider how best to manage your pension contributions across your portfolio to ensure you are maximising your pension pot. Some choose to use the services of a financial advisor, particularly if they have different pensions across different types of roles (employer and private pensions).

Depending on the scope and complexity of your portfolio you may wish to consider using the services of a financial advisor. They can help you understand the financial implications of adding roles to your portfolio, of mixing employed and self-employed work and help you plan for life events like mortgages and retirement.

It is your responsibility to ensure you are properly indemnified for the work you do. In employed roles this is typically paid for and administered by your employer. For self-employed roles you will need to put in place the indemnity insurance to cover the work you do. Your professional body will be able to advise on this.

How much money is enough money? What is your attitude to financial risk? How will you manage if some of your portfolio disappears? These are good questions to ask as your portfolio career evolves. Having a steady part or full-time income can give the confidence to then explore other opportunities.

You can only bring your best to a role if you’re clear about what the role is and what is expected of you. Your employer is responsible for providing a reasonable indication to the organisation, your role and wider team. Induction is a good time to establish the nitty gritty of how you will make the role work with your existing portfolio.

Good supervision in each of your roles is important to ensure that you are supported and developing in your role. Clear, honest, and direct communication with your supervisor about your commitments can help you better manage your time across your portfolio.

Being clear about what your training and study leave entitlement is in each of your roles will help you better co-ordinate this time. Planning your training and study leave well in advance will help both you and your employer to manage any necessary backfill or rota gaps. Your employer should tell you what mandatory training is necessary for your role. Check to see if any is transferable across organisations and be sure to schedule this into your role time.

Your CPD requirements may be more varied depending on the roles within your portfolio, so you need to ensure that your CPD is relevant and appropriate. If you have a very full portfolio you need to find a way to keep up your clinical CPD. This may mean accessing a range of different CPD options not just traditional classroom learning. Keep a record of your CPD across your portfolio so can evidence that you are meeting your clinical standards code of practice.

Having a clear and structured progression route across a portfolio career is challenging. So too is identifying the transferable skills you have and matching those to opportunities. It can be helpful to work with a coach or mentor to talk through your aspirations and gain clarity on what value you, your skills, knowledge, and experience can bring to different roles and organisations. Your local training hub, your organisation, your local NHS leadership academy, or professional body may be able to help you access a coach or mentor.

Common challenges and how to overcome them

Being organised

Schedule this well in advance ensuring you co-ordinate it across your roles.

Schedule this into your working time. Check if any mandatory training is transferable across roles.

Include work and domestic arrangements so you can see all of your commitments in one place. Take time to check arrangements for the week ahead.

Keep a day book and use ‘to-do’ lists to manage tasks. Use central filing systems to keep information in one place, cutting down on time spent searching for files.

Managing time

Block out time in your calendar for each task including time to think, to write, to read, to be creative, to do work. Make sure the task fits the time.

Consider using a time management tool to help you. Eisenhower’s matrix helps to distinguish between important, unimportant, urgent, and non-urgent tasks.

Scheduling breaks into your day can make you more productive. Turning off phone notifications removes distractions.

Communication

Sometimes the demand from one role can intrude into another. Be clear about if and when you are contactable outside of your specific role time. Figure out what works best for you and set clear expectations for communication.

Managing more than one role requires clear, direct, honest, and timely communication. Be direct about what you want, what you are willing to do and what will work for you. This will help to set the baseline for compromise and help you to manage expectations across your roles.

Setting boundaries

A portfolio career with many roles can sometimes feel all consuming. Having some regular, scheduled ‘me time’ is important for health and wellbeing. Taking emails off your phone when on annual leave can hep you switch off.

Having more than one role can sometimes mean there are conflicts of interest. This could mean being in receipt of privileged information or being part of decisions that might impact another role. Declare any conflicts and understand and follow appropriate procedures.

Thriving in a portfolio career

Knowing yourself and what makes you tick

Anyone has the potential to make a portfolio career work. Whether you plan in advance to work in this way or whether it evolves over time, knowing yourself and what makes you tick can help to ensure your portfolio works for you. Some simple questions can get you started:

  1. What are you passionate about?
  2. What are you interested in?
  3. What would a successful portfolio career look like for you?
  4. How would you manage yourself across two or more roles?
  5. How will it make you feel when the demands of one role impacts on another?
  6. What risks are you willing to take to create a portfolio career?
  7. What would you be giving up if you had a portfolio career?
  8. What options are available to you right now?
  9. Who in your network could support you?
  10. Which of your strengths will help you achieve your portfolio career?

“If it is right for you, a portfolio career can be very rewarding”.

Know your strengths

Increasing your self-awareness and being honest about what your preferences are and what works for you, will help you decide whether a portfolio career is for you. Understanding your strengths and aligning them to the work you do as part of your portfolio can promote engagement, a sense of calling and improve energy and productivity. You can use different tools to understand your strengths, work with a coach or mentor or simply seek feedback from colleagues and peers.

  • Your best – what are you doing when you are at your best?

  • At ease – what do you find easy and are naturally good at?

  • Energised – when do you feel most alive? What energises you?

  • Authentic – what makes you say ‘this is the real me’?

  • Motivated – what do you do just for the love of it?

  • Flow – what puts you ‘in the zone’ where you are completely absorbed and lose track of time?

  • Fast learner – what sort of skill do you pick up rapidly and effectively?

The VIA Character Strengths Survey is a free scientific based survey to help people discover their character strengths.

Finding your tribe, connecting with others

Portfolio careers are different to traditional ways of working. Knowing where to start and what opportunities are out there can be challenging. You don’t know what you don’t know – so how do you find out? By connecting with others and finding your tribe.

  • Seek out and get involved in different forums aligned to what you are interested in (eg. AHP Forum, Advanced Practice Forum).

  • Put yourself into the spaces where you are interested – go to talks, seminars, conferences (virtual and in-person).

  • Embrace 1-2-1 conversations with people to understand what their job is, how they got to where they are, be curious and open minded.

  • Look for networking opportunities to meet others.

  • Use social media to connect beyond your local network and professional field – learn from outside healthcare (Twitter, LinkedIn).

  • Offering to help others is a great way to build your network,

  • Engaging with a university can help you to understand and progress research opportunities.

  • Having a support network will help you scope out opportunities for your portfolio career and will provide a sense of balance and confidence as you work across your various roles.