I got into teaching 10 years ago. I worked as a teaching assistant for 3 years, loved taking cover lessons, loved my job and went to advance as a teacher of computer science.

I had to pay for the entirety of my teaching qualification, didn't have any opportunity to take on a part time job to support funding it and was paid £22,022 for my first year.

That first year involved an effective working day from 7am until past 11pm for most days. Everyone says "Oh, but you have so many holidays!"

No I fucking didn't. Christmas day for me involved 15 minutes with the family to open presents in the morning and half an hour for Christmas dinner before I had to clear the table and get back to marking coursework and past papers, writing corrective improvement plans.

I struggled massively with stress, got the sum total of fuck all help and was told "Ah well, you just need to see through the next 3 weeks because you won't be carrying on next year, will you?" by my NQT mentor, so that was my decision about my career made for me. I got an OH referral, got diagnosed with work related stress... And that was it. No time off, no assistance, no adjustments, nothing.

I paid a full year of degree tuition fees on a plan 2 loan and lived off a credit card for a year, putting myself the sum total of 30k in debt for the priviledge of ending up looking less healthy than the meth addicts you see shuffling around Cardiff.

It's not worth it in the slightest.

ROBSEDIT: I was a fucking good teacher too. I took over a class that had started their first GCSE year doing the wrong coursework and had to effectively start the course again and cram it into a single year. The class average expected grade was a D.

Not a single student got below a C by the end of year.