The age of the career is over

A job is no longer for life. Zoé Beaty discovers how success and stability in an uncertain world now belongs to the polygamous worker’ maximising their passive income’

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“Honestly, sometimes I wonder whether I should have bothered trying to have a career at all,” Louise*, 37, is saying. For just over 15 years, she’s worked tirelessly to fulfil her ambitions in marketing – and she’s been more than successful. She’s dutifully put the hours and effort in to climb the ranks as a strategist for brilliant big brands, teetering on the edge of her first creative director role – “That was always the aim,” she says. “But now I’m here, the world has changed. As galling as it is, in 2025, achieving your dreams just isn’t enough.”

That sounds very sad, I say, and without missing a beat, Louise begins explaining why I am right: “It is sad. I went into my career after uni like everyone else, thinking that I just had to work hard and it would pay off – buckle down, climb the ladder, all that.

“It’s just not the case, though,” Louise continues. “On the slim chance you can get a house deposit together, you’re probably priced out by the mortgage anyway; companies make redundancies at the drop of a hat, probably because AI can do your job quicker and better. Living is so expensive that no one has the spare cash to invest in a private pension, and we’d be stupid to think that a state-funded pension will exist in another 30 years.” She pauses for breath. “You’ve got to take it into your own hands.”

For some, that means being a so-called “polygamous worker” – a new cohort of staff taking salaries for multiple jobs by abusing work-from-home culture. So many TikTok videos and websites teaching staff how to moonlight have now popped up that police are working with employers to crack down on fraudulent behaviour in the office; last week, one civil servant denied nine counts of fraud after being accused of holding down three different government jobs simultaneously.

Gen-Zers don’t have that same mindset as previous generations, dutifully working 9 to 5