Our new way to search for purposeful work

Issue 860, Sun 6 September, 2026

Dear Escapees,

In 1964, a group of seven-year-olds were filmed talking about their lives and what they imagined might come next. The cameras went back every seven years. Next week, 70 Up airs, bringing one of British television’s strangest and most fascinating experiments to an end after more than six decades.

There’s something quite comforting about seeing a whole life unfold like that, mainly because it makes the idea of having everything figured out look faintly ridiculous. At 21 you might be absolutely certain where you’re going. At 35 you may have a mortgage, a completely different plan and an intimate knowledge of Microsoft Teams. By 50, the things you care about can have shifted again.

We put a lot of pressure on career decisions to reveal the whole plot. Pick the right industry, find the right thing, make the move that finally makes sense of everything. Real lives seem to have other ideas. Jobs can be right for a chapter. Interests appear late. People change direction, change their minds, discover causes they care about, and find uses for skills they never anticipated when they acquired them.

So perhaps this week’s Top 10 doesn’t need to contain the answer. Ten interesting possibilities is plenty.

Happy Escaping,

Team Escape

P.S. And if the question you’re asking now is less “what job next?” and more “where could my experience actually make a difference?”, applications for our new Escape to Impact Programme open next week. Register your interest here>

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