Perhaps you've reached the point where you catch yourself asking, “Do I really want to carry on doing this?”

You're still good at your job. You've spent years developing your skills, you're earning decent money and, from the outside, there may be no obvious reason to change anything. But the work doesn't feel the way it used to. The things you once enjoyed are taking up less of your day, and the things that frustrate you seem to be taking up more.

Then you see another job. It pays less, perhaps quite a bit less. But it looks more interesting. You might have more control over your time, use your experience in a different way or simply spend your days doing work you can see the point of.

So you start wondering: should I change jobs for less money, or would I be making a mistake?

Should I change jobs for less money?

Taking a lower-paid job can be a sensible decision if the income still supports your responsibilities and the work genuinely offers something you're missing. A better use of your skills, more autonomy or a working day you enjoy may matter more than keeping your current salary. But don't assume that earning less means the new job will be easier or better. You need to investigate what you're actually moving into.

That's the real question. Not simply, “Can I afford the pay cut?” but “What am I getting back in return?”

For somebody who's spent thirty years working, that might be a surprisingly important distinction. There comes a point when another pay rise isn't necessarily the thing you most want from a job.

Am I fed up with working, or with the way I'm working?

These are two different problems, yet it's easy to treat them as the same one.

You might be tired of targets that make little sense, reporting that takes time away from customers, or having your judgement questioned by people who don't understand the work as well as you do. None of that necessarily means you've stopped enjoying the useful part of your job.

Perhaps you still like solving problems. You like dealing with people, making something work properly or helping a customer. What you no longer like is everything that's been built around those things.

In that situation, a different job could be a better answer than leaving work altogether. You may not need a complete career change either. Sometimes the opportunity is an adjacent role, another industry or an employer that values the same experience but uses it differently.

I've written more about why work can start to feel different after 50. One of the important points is that you can still be capable and experienced while no longer wanting the arrangement you've ended up in.

Is taking a pay cut for a better job worth it?

I think it can be. If you've got enough financial room to make the change, why dismiss a job that looks genuinely more rewarding simply because it doesn't pay as much?

You've already put years into developing your abilities. There may be an opportunity to use the best of them without also carrying the parts of your current role that have begun to wear you down. Less money might buy back some enjoyment, energy or control over your week.

But there is a trap in that thinking. A lower salary isn't proof of lower pressure, better management or greater freedom. A job that's more interesting on paper could still involve a difficult boss, unrealistic targets or a culture that expects you to be available all the time.

You could end up earning less and being just as unhappy. That's the part we need to take seriously.

What I'd do differently if I went back to employed work

I left my career in sales at 53. I was earning considerably more then than I earn now, and I don't pretend that the years since have been a neat progression from one income to another.

I tried different things, learnt new skills and eventually began building Over 50 Reset. These days I earn less than I did in my old career, but I'm on a mission. I wake up interested in what I'm doing. I'm building something that matters to me, working through ideas and talking with people who are asking the same sorts of questions I had to face myself.

That doesn't mean every day is easy, or that doing something you enjoy automatically pays the bills. It doesn't. But I have a reason to get up and get on with it, and that counts for a great deal.

Here's the interesting part. If I decided tomorrow that I needed to return to employed work, I wouldn't go looking for the same senior sales position I'd held before. I already know what I didn't like about that environment. Why would I deliberately put myself back into it?

I'd look for something adjacent. A role where I could still use my experience of dealing with people, understanding what they need and finding sensible solutions, without necessarily taking on the same reporting, targets and pressures that had made the old career less appealing.

It might pay less. I would have to check whether I could afford that. But if the role really did suit me better, I wouldn't automatically regard the lower salary as a step backwards.

That comes from having examined my options, not from believing everyone should leave a well-paid job. For other people, with different responsibilities, the calculation may be very different.

How do I know I won't be jumping from the frying pan into the fire?

This, to me, is the most important caution. When you're fed up where you are, almost anything different can start to look attractive. The new employer seems friendly. The job description sounds refreshing. The interview goes well. You imagine yourself coming home less drained.

But you're comparing the reality of your current job with the promise of one you haven't done yet. That's not a fair comparison.

Before accepting a lower-paid position, I would want proper answers to questions like these:

• What will I actually spend most of my week doing? Not the attractive parts of the job description — the ordinary Tuesday.

• Who decides how I do the work? Will my experience be trusted, or will I face the same layers of approval and measurement?

• What targets and expectations come with the role? Ask how success is measured, and what happens when priorities compete.

• Why is the position vacant? Is the team growing, has someone moved on, or is there a pattern of people leaving?

• Can I meet someone doing the work? A conversation with a future colleague may tell you more than another polished interview.

None of this guarantees a good outcome. But it helps you test whether the new job actually changes what matters to you. You don't have to take somebody's recruitment pitch at face value.

The same principle applies to changing direction more generally: creating options before committing to one gives you more room to investigate rather than react.

What if I could improve my current job instead?

Before looking elsewhere, it's worth asking whether the parts of your job you dislike could actually be changed.

Could you move into another team? Reduce travel? Give up some management responsibility? Work fewer days? Return to more hands-on work? These aren't always possible, and some employers won't be interested. But if you still like the substance of the job, it's a possibility worth checking.

On the other hand, if the underlying culture is the problem, a different job title in the same organisation may change very little. You could end up with the same frustrations under a different heading.

That's why I wouldn't treat “stay or leave” as the first and only decision. There's often a more useful question underneath it: “What, specifically, would need to be different for me to want to keep doing this?”

How much of a pay cut is too much?

There's no single percentage that makes a pay cut sensible. Losing ten per cent could be manageable for one household and completely unrealistic for another.

I'd want to know what the new take-home pay would actually be, whether it covers the commitments that must stay secure, and what happens to pension contributions, savings and any benefits you would be giving up. I'd also look at the hours, travel costs and time involved. A smaller salary with less travel and a shorter week isn't the same proposition as a smaller salary for longer hours.

But I wouldn't spend weeks perfecting a spreadsheet while ignoring the bigger question: is this job a better fit? Money tells you whether an option is viable. It doesn't tell you whether you'll enjoy it.

If you genuinely cannot afford the change now, that's important information rather than a reason to give up looking. You may be able to negotiate, build some financial room or wait for a different opportunity. I've covered that situation separately in what to do when you want to leave your job but can't afford to.

Should I take a lower-paid job just to feel happier?

I would be careful about promising yourself that a new job will make you happy. Work is still work. Even a role you enjoy will have dull days, difficult people and things you'd rather not do.

A better test might be to ask whether it would give you more of the kind of working life you actually want. Would you be using skills you value? Would your judgement count? Would the hours leave room for the rest of your life? And could you imagine doing the ordinary parts of the job without immediately wanting to escape again?

Those are questions you can investigate. Happiness is much harder to predict.

What if I still can't decide whether to stay or change jobs?

Then I wouldn't rush the decision simply to make the uncertainty go away. A lower-paid job might be the right move, but it isn't the only move. Staying and changing the terms of your work, finding an adjacent role or testing a completely different direction are all possibilities worth considering in the light of your own circumstances.

That's why I wrote the wider article on whether to stay, change jobs or retire after 50. The decision becomes easier to examine when you stop treating all those choices as one enormous question.

And it's also why I built Next Stage. It's an eight-week guided programme for people over 50 who know they don't want to carry on by default but aren't yet sure what the sensible next direction is. We work through what's really happening, what needs to change, what has to remain secure and which possibilities are worth checking. It's not about me telling somebody to resign or take a pay cut.

You may not need a programme to make this decision. You may simply need to ask better questions of a prospective employer or have a proper conversation about the job you're already doing.

But don't dismiss an interesting opportunity just because the salary is lower. Equally, don't convince yourself it's a better life simply because it isn't the job you've got now.

The aim isn't to earn less. It's to work out whether earning less would allow you to work in a way that suits you better — without exchanging one set of frustrations for another.