The death of the career – why it’s now all about ‘passive income’ and the ‘polygamous worker’

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.

For Louise, however, it means finding ways to create “passive 颈苍肠辞尘别” – or, at least, find ways to safeguard or hijack their income that don’t rely on traditional work structures. It’s money made with little to no effort – or making money in your sleep.

Technically, “passive 颈苍肠辞尘别” is a business or trade that you don’t materially participate in. It’s different to a “side hustle” in that it’s not extra work you’re taking on – after the upfront labour and/or cost, the money should just gently roll in of its own accord. For the most part, passive income has always meant either having an investment portfolio of some sort, or a rental property that brings in cash – essentially, being wealthy. Now it’s taken on a whole new lease of life.

Unsurprisingly, passive income is a saturated market – you don’t have to look too hard to see why. Most of us, like Louise, can rattle off the myriad reasons that life often feels quite a lot harder than we feel it ought to be. Many, quite justifiably, feel a bit tricked. And it’s not just millennials like Louise. Gen X have also drawn a short straw at a different point of the career ladder – most have 10 or 20 years left before retirement from an ever-younger, AI-driven jobs market; much like millennials, their skills and ideas have aged quicker against unprecedented advances in technology.

For Gen Z, there was never any real question about the brittle nature of the job market – which is why they’ve gone about things in a different way. Rather than investing themselves in the 9-5 as the generations above them did wholeheartedly, they’ve earned a reputation as a cohort with a questionable work ethic. But that’s not necessarily the case: they are working hard, just not necessarily at the 9-5 job they have. They’re just as likely to refuse long hours in their 9-5 because it’s not their only job. Flexibility is key because they have grown up with the knowledge that jobs definitely aren’t for life.

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“I don’t blame Gen Z at all for their so-called bad attitudes at work,” Jen*, a 36-year-old friend living in east London, says. “What are they even working for? Where’s the reward?” Jen also achieved her “dream” of becoming a full-time writer by using multi-income streaming. Now, every time we meet for dinner, we exchange business ideas to fund our retirement.

Her partner, a documentary maker, already uses an app, Getaround, to rent out his car when it’s not in use – the company having installed a device that allows users to open and lock it using their phone. He also rents out camera equipment in the same way.

Both Jen and her partner put the money they’ve earned from these income streams into investment funds each month. Jen’s ?200 direct debit from her salary goes into a long-term investment via an app called Nutmeg. It’s a risk – as all investments are – and she’s made losses along the way. But there have also been times when her passive income stream was almost ?30k in profit.

Making sure you’re investing wisely – even just using a stocks and shares ISA – is the most failsafe, common, low-effort way to make passive income, says Alex King, founder of Generation Money. King built a platform specifically to address the issues that have led to this surge in younger people seeking out alternative ways to be financially secure. Generation Money provides education and guidance to optimise savings and manage money better – something that very few of us feel confident in, or have ever been taught.

“I think interest in all things personal finance has just increased over time,” says the 35-year-old, who spent more than a decade working in the finance sector. “More so than my parents’ generation – it used to be the case that if you went to university, you could be pretty much guaranteed a job for 30 years and then retire on a good pension. But, particularly since the financial crisis of 2008, that’s been upended.

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“Now, pensions are less secure, jobs are less secure, housing is less affordable, wages are more stagnant. Because of that, people have become more interested in how to be more financially independent. And Gen-Zers don’t have that same mindset as previous generations, dutifully working nine to five. In some cases, they’re dubbed as seeing themselves turning up for work as doing the company a favour. To be honest, I kind of respect them.”

The thing is, everyone feels that their own generation has been hard done by – but now, the global economy, the jobs market, the ripple effects of the Covid pandemic, the Ukraine-Russian war, the cost of living crisis and successive governments scrabbling over growing national debt means that, basically, in some way, everyone is right. “Many people have a sense of unfairness within their generation,” says King. “And so, looking at ways of bringing in passive income, starting a side hustle, or learning how to invest or trade makes them feel they can get ahead of a less-than-ideal situation.”

Add to that mix the growing, very real threat of AI, and all bets are off. AI has the potential to significantly reduce the number of jobs in any market, and eradicate some entirely. And while it’s not exactly an imminent change, it’s certainly not abstract. If anything, it only gives credence to the idea that the traditional career route is insecure – and makes the idea of utilising several passive income streams even more appealing.

Unsurprisingly, that means there is a lot of snake oil being sold as passive income. On TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, making stacks of passive income appears, quite frankly, to be a doddle.

Users in their droves post about their enormously profitable schemes from which they claim to make sometimes thousands of pounds per month – either selling ebooks or pre-written courses, buying vending machines (yes really), using “drop-shipping” (where a third-party supplier sends products directly to the customer) to sell notebooks, T-shirts, mugs. Others advise setting up multiple YouTube channels using popular keywords like “white noise” or using affiliate marketing links on your social media.

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The passive income influencers – or “finfluencers” (financial influencers) – are, ironically, cashing in on the buzz with the thousands of views they’re getting paid for. While being very online can be a legitimate source of passive income, renting out assets you already own can also bring in hundreds per month.

One acquaintance rents out the caravan on his drive for ?45 a day/night (and it’s surprisingly popular, especially with a local neighbour who uses it to “escape her kids”); other people rent out their driveway or parking space to earn extra income. Renting out a spare room can bring a bonus of up to ?7,500 per year, tax-free. There are also sites like Swimple, where the wealthy rent out their private pools. While not strictly passive income, many people use sites like Cat in a Flat, where you get paid to stay in someone else’s house to look after their cat and can make more than ?100 in one weekend – and more in the week (great for those who can work from anywhere).

The “dodgy influencers on social media”, as King calls them, who are often found selling courses on how to make passive income, “can be quite predatory”, he warns. “There’s definitely an element of being very careful about signing up. If these income streams, like buying vending machines, for example, were really making them so much money, would they be telling thousands and thousands more people about it? No,” says King. Basically, use your noggin: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

But, done right, passive income – and more education on how to make it work – could be much more than a status symbol. It could begin to democratise financial stability.

For most people, whether you’re starting out in your career or nearing retirement in a grim, depleted jobs market, it’s not just a bit of extra cash in your pocket but a way to feel more in control in a world that’s unsteady at best.

For Louise, taking things into her own hands meant completing a short course on how to invest and then setting up a little portfolio, as well as registering her flat on a site where TV and film directors scout filming locations. It’s not exactly making money in your sleep, “but,” she says, “it’s money in my pocket that’s more reliable than my next pay rise. The world’s my oyster again,” she laughs.

*Some of the names have been changed