When Alexa was made redundant from her job in tech sales for the second time in her young career, she realised she couldn’t rely on her industry for financial stability anymore. “It’s volatile, there’s a lot of lay-offs, I wanted to give myself an added layer of protection; a contingency plan,” she says. “It doesn’t matter what company you’re in, it’s so up and down.”
The 26-year-old used her savings to pay £1,800 to train as a pilates instructor. Within a matter of months, she was teaching classes five days a week before commuting into London from Buckinghamshire for her nine-to-five. In the first year, she topped up her salary by five figures: “Any money I made, I invested,” she says. “I’m very money-oriented, as I think you can probably tell… I’d rather spend my time doing pilates classes than scrolling on TikTok.”
