Meet the Tireds: young, wealthy and disillusioned by 30

They started as precocious teenagers and became high-earning yuppies but on reaching 30, their generation has concluded that much of modern life is rubbish.

They started as precocious teenagers and became high-earning yuppies but on reaching 30, their generation has concluded that much of modern life is rubbish.

Enter the Tired - the Thirtysomething Independent Radical Educated Dropout - who is prepared to leave a hard-won professional job because he or she feels the system has let them down. Instead of risking burnout by pushing body and soul to the limits - so 1980s - they are turning to occupations that pay less but offer more satisfaction and less stress.

According to research by a niche marketing group, about one in 15 people aged 30 or over has already decided to "protire" - a term describing a mid-life sideways move that emphasises the positive aspects of retirement such as the time to explore other interests.

A further 45 per cent in a survey of 1,100 people aged 18-35 said they were considering taking the same route out of the "rat race" into jobs such as small-scale organic farming, charity work, flower-arranging, alternative medicine or housework.

The report said that the Tired generation was a backlash against social changes that forced them to work harder in the past decade amid increasing insecurity. They have graduated with student debts averaging £11,000 into a flexible but increasingly "cut-throat" labour market with little protection from the welfare state, according to the report by The Fish Can Sing, which advises brands such as Absolut Vodka, Nike and Motorola.

Howard Beale, a partner at the company, said: "A significant proportion of talented young people, precisely those who business are so keen on, are pro-tiring. Young people in a weird way have become older than their parents. Huge student debt means they have become very career-focused and worried about money. The generation perceived to have it all are questioning whether they want it all.''

Authors of the report interviewed people in focus groups and concluded that at the age of 30, many are facing an epiphany. "The mid-life crisis is coming earlier and to a broader range of professional people. Once it was the overworked bankers aged 45-50 but now it is happening to lawyers, journalists, teachers and doctors in their 30s,'' Mr Beale said.

Among under 30s there is still an intense desire for money, career success and status. The report even claims that "Britain has never been a more ambitious place" and notes that in the past decade the number of young people who fear "dying without achieving anything" has doubled to 65 per cent. The most popular route to achievement is seen to be in the media, technology or design.

The market will intervene to restore faith and aspiration to the generation succeeding the Tireds but things may get worse before they get better, the report predicts. It concludes: "It is unlikely that pro-retirement will become the norm. History suggests that were this to become the case, employers would raise pay in order to persuade employees to stay. It also confirms that as with the counter-cultural years, the socially aware drop-outs in society can represent the repressed feelings of a far larger social group.

"Relatively few of our respondents may have pro-retired; almost half of them say they would like to. Tired and pro-retirees might be losing interest in business, but business should not lose interest in them."

NIKKAN WOODHOUSE FROM CITY LAWYER TO FREELANCE DESIGNER

Nikkan Woodhouse, 32, quit her £80,000-a-year job as a City lawyer in February because the work left her unfulfilled and with little time for outside interests.

She has since set up her own business making and selling modern art, and speaks highly of her move into "protirement".

Although she never planned to become a lawyer - falling into it as an "easy option" at Oxford University - it was a job with a title and a set career path. But it also came with a 70-hour working week.

Her time with a multinational company's legal department was "interesting but very stressful", leaving her restless and wanting to do something more creative.

"I never once felt that I did anything other than push words around," she says, describing the City as "like living in virtual reality where you can earn a lot of money by contributing astonishingly little". The highs were the financial security, the travel and the involvement in high-profile business, but the level of commitment demanded took its toll. "This company takes massive chunks out of each day of you life, there's this issue of control," she said. "You feel like you don't really own your time, they have a hold over you which you can't change unless you walk away."

Ms Woodhouse had always harboured artistic ambitions but buckled in the face of conventional career advice. She now runs a web-based company which specialises in printing contemporary art and designs on materials ranging from canvas to perspex.

She said: "It was an idea I came across a year or two ago when I was decorating my loft apartment. I blew up a load of cool photographs, printing them on to perspex, and loads of people commented on them. I guess I just thought, 'Why not?'"

Away from the office she has the time to play five-a-side football several nights a week and has started an evening college course.

She said: "It's great to be able to make commitments outside of work. There just weren't the hours in the day to do anything like this before."

Oliver Duff

ACRONYM GENERATION

DINKY: Double Income No Kids Yet. Origin: Eighties term for gay couples. Use: Affluent, childless couples

YUPPIE: Young Urban Professional. Origin:Eighties advertising. Use:Ambitious career person

SINBAD: Single Income No Boyfriend Absolutely Desperate. Origin: Eighties marketing. Use: Single woman in her thirties.

SITCOM: Single Income Two Children Oppressive Marriage. Origin: Eighties marketing. Use: Unhappy marrieds.

WOOPIE: Well-Off Older Person. Origin: Eighties marketing.Use: Affluent and active retired people.

Melissa Sim