Woman, 37, ditched university to become a voice actor - now she earns £114,000-a-year and can be heard in popular Google adverts

A woman ditched university to become a successful voice actor - and now earns £114,000 a year and can be heard in popular Google and WhatsApp adverts.Emily Jardine, 37, from Reading, a voice actor and coach, decided not to go to university and instead pursued her acting and music passions.After completing a BTEC National Diploma in business studies and getting a double distinction star, Emily was initially picking up odd jobs until she found a project assistant job on Gumtree - and ended up trying voice acting while in the role and fell in love.Initially she was only earning a few hundred pounds a year and continued working admin roles to pay her bills.But she managed to work her way up and earnt £114,000 last year - and has done adverts for the likes of Coca-Cola and Milka.Emily said: 'I was doing just normal admin and office jobs for a while after school but I had been a musician for years.'I decided not to go to university because I have always forged my own path and broken tradition, without it being rebellion though. University just did not feel right for me.'I started off in acting and things like that, but I had left it behind a little bit, and so back in around 2012 I went on to Gumtree to look for a new job. Emily Jardine (pictured), 37, from Reading, a voice actor and coach, decided not to go to university and instead pursue her acting and music passions'I became a project assistant in a studio and I started working with voice talents and casting. Then one day my manager asked me to do a quick voiceover.'I got behind that microphone and I was so scared. I thought they could hear my heartbeat but I fell head over heels in love with it.'Emily said it wasn't plain sailing and she spent one to two months doing free jobs before she started getting paid for her voiceover work.Emily said: 'At first in 2012 I would do jobs for free, which isn't great, but I would do it and then eventually clients would ask for me again and I started getting paid.'And that grew and grew and grew, and suddenly I was doing huge jobs for companies like Vodafone and Milka chocolate.'I was then doing Coca-Cola, and just all of these massive, massive brands. It was amazing.'Examples of adverts Emily has done includes, world food company Danone, where she is the voice at the end of the ads, Bentley, Emma Sleep, Pantene, WhatsApp, John Lewis, HSBC, Babybel, BT, Barbie, Trailfinders, Google, Vodafone, British Airways, Amazon Prime, Durex, LEGO and Dungeons & Dragons.Emily said in 2017 she went from working as a voice artist with an agency to a non-exclusive voice actor who works for herself. It was then that she saw her earnings 'soar'. She has 51 agents in 24 countries.Emily said: 'My earnings started off as absolutely nothing at all, and then it grew to maybe a couple of £100 a year for one or two years, and then by the time we got to year five, it went to maybe £4,000. After completing a BTEC National Diploma in business studies and getting a double distinction star, Emily was initially picking up odd jobs until she found a project assistant job on Gumtree - and ended up trying voice acting while in the role and fell in love'Then I thought I'm going to essentially have nobody managing my diary and do it myself and literally overnight my income soared. I thought, okay, this is the way I'm going to do it.'As her salary went up by thousands and thousands each year, Emily said she splashed out on more extravagant holidays and bought a four bedroom house.Emily said: 'I started saving and suddenly my holidays were getting nicer, I had nicer clothes. I bought my first house in 2021 and my income was just jumping and jumping and jumping. I was earning every single year, bar one, more than I did the last year.'The first time I hit £90,000, I think, was about three years ago. And the next year, it was around £96,000 and then last year was £114,000.'This year she predicts she'll make around the same.Emily said on a typical day she works in her own voiceover studio which she built in her garden from around 10am to 6pm but everyday is different.Emily said: 'Let's say it's a nice busy week, I might do up to 10 voiceovers and I might coach two or three people.'It's been lovely that I've gone from commuting and doing all these crazy things and my life being completely bonkers, to now I walk downstairs, I go outside and I have a fifty-two second commute. And I can work less for more money.'When asked about her opinion on university, Emily explained there are many avenues for a career which does not need qualifications.She said: 'There are lots of industries out there that you don't actually need to go to university to get into.'It's not even based on qualifications, if you're creative, and if you have a hell of a lot of drive, and find yourself in a position where you have something to offer that maybe nobody else does, it's quite likely, you'll be able to massively change your career.'I'm not going to say it's easy. It's really, really hard being a voice actor, but if I hadn't been pulled down into that studio one day and taken out of my comfort zone and been pushed, I wouldn't have realised really how much I loved being behind a microphone rather than in front of it.'