A YouTuber who left his council job to play Football Manager full time says his salary has doubled since making the dramatic switch.
Tom Kelsey, 26, from Lincoln, kicked off his YouTube channel during his time as a student at Nottingham Trent University, and currently produces around three videos a week of him playing his favourite game from his parents’ home.
He told the BBC: “It’s the freedom that I get from it, that’s what I love.”
“As (the channel) got more popular and more people started watching it, you start to earn money from the adverts that you see.
“Suddenly this became an idea – that I could do this as a job one day.”
Kelsey left his position as a business support assistant at Lincolnshire County Council in August 2022 to pursue his passion, and added about his spike in income: “In terms of the money I make now, it’s double what I was earning in my full-time job before I did YouTube.”
He also said he loves the independence that comes with being his own boss.
With 118,000 subscribers and around one million monthly views on his online channel, Kelsey invests 50 to 60 hours weekly playing Football Manager.
He added: “It’s a very unusual career path when you say you’re going to play video games for my job.
“It keeps growing year on year, month on month, so I’ll try and do this for as long as I can.”
