Any question answered...

It's not easy to say publically that sometimes you you feel like a failure, so kudos for that.

Definitely worth exploring your reasons for doing it more deeply as its a bigger commitment later on in life both financially and personally.

E.g. You might think about the people in your life that mean the most to you, work, personal life etc. How much does them having or not having a degree feature into how important they are to you?

E.g. You could ask where you're going in your career and would some kind of development / education enable this.

Pursuing a degree might still be an important outcome for you. One of these maybe related to the fact that many employers are considering the future and how their industries and colleague skills will change in the face of AI...

In which case there's a few options.

Ask if your employer would consider sponsoring you directly (many templates online for writing to your employer)

You could also ask if they'd consider supporting you (time and money) for a degree apprenticeship where you study part time to grow appropriate skills for the organisation. They may already be contributing to the apprenticeship levy, but this is not a requirement for supporting apprentices.(https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-take-on-an-apprentice#using-the-apprenticeship-service)

Otherwise you could spread it out over time with someone like Open University. Or take a persoanl development loan if you want to jump in with two feet.

What options have people here pursued for a degree qualification later in life when they have a pretty demanding job?

I did a Maths degree (Bachelors) with the OU many years ago (2005-2012). All whilst working full-time and becoming a father.

You can get it done in faster than 6 years but it depends on the course and the dependencies, usually 4 years is the minimum time possible for a Bachelors degree.

I took 8 years to do mine because I wasn't in a rush and did an extra couple of courses that I was interested in.

As others have said it's about ~£22k at the moment for a typical Bachelors degree with the OU (some courses will be more if there are materials or other requirements). No problem doing it from abroad. Go to https://www.open.ac.uk/courses/fees-and-funding and click the "Change location" button and you can select the country you're in.

How much workload it is depends on you and the course. For my Maths degree I already had a reasonable grounding in Maths (Further Maths A-Level) and had done some 1st year Maths with my existing Comp Sci degree.

The OU does say:

"One credit represents about 10 hours of study. You’re awarded credits after you successfully complete a module – for example, a 60-credit module awards 60 credits."

So they seem to say that a 60 credit module (effectively half a year of a degree) is ~ 600h. Which is bonkers. For the typical time between start and exams that's about 16-18h/week. No way I did anywhere near that.

I did pretty much the bare minimum to get through mine:

For the first year modules I'd rattle off the assignments (4 for a 30 credit module) in under 2h each, often without reading any of the material beforehand. I'd start with the question paper and, if stuck, look through the course booklets for the relevant stuff and smash out the answers.

So for a 60 credit worth of 1st year module(s) I'd spend 16h doing assignments (8 assignments at 2h each) and then a bunch of hours looking at past papers in the weeks before the exam. So probably 25h in total.

Second year it probably went to 3-4h per assignment, and a bit more time looking at past papers, so probably 50h in total for 60 credits worth of modules.

Third year it was 4-5h per assignment and quite a bit more time on past papers. Probably 75h-100h for 60 credits worth of modules (most 3rd year modules were 30 credits each).

I recognise that I'm an outlier here. I have a natural affinity for Maths so had to do less work than many others.

Most of the time I'd start the assignment the night before the last posting date, smash it out late into the evening (starting at 11pm and finishing at 3am wasn't uncommon), copy it out more neatly, photograph it (as a backup), stick it in an envelope and then post it the next day (getting proof of postage).

Occasionally I left it so late I had to do it on the actual deadline day and then cycle it round to the tutors house to hand deliver it.

Obviously things are a bit more modern now and electronic submission makes things a lot easier (especially if studying internationally).

If I did a completely different degree (I don't know, Geography, Sociology or Psychology, etc) I'd be needing to do a fuck load more work each week as I wouldn't be able to just blag it so easily.

If you have time to spare then it's easy to fit it in and isn't that much of a burden.

The odd thing about the UK undergraduate degrees is that they're way more expensive than postgraduate degrees:

• The 3 year (4-6 years in reality) Maths Bachelors degree with the OU is ~£22k
  
• The 4 year (6 years in reality) Maths Masters degree with the OU is ~£12.5k
  
  

You can't just jump straight into a Masters degree though. Some will be very hard without suitable grounding before hand, there may be foundation options to help bridge the gap, but a single year of undergraduate study before starting the Masters will bring the costs up to the same as a full undergraduate degree.

Any idea what you'd be interested in studying?

tl;dr is that it's quite expensive (~£22k) and takes a long time (4-6 years) but it's doable with a job/family/life.

(Also I paid about £4k in total, including a week long residential course in Nottingham. Absolute bargain. Would have carried on doing OU courses but the course fees went up from ~£750/full-year to £3000/full-year and then to £7000/full-year).