Hi @MaghullDave and welcome to the forums.
You do not spend real money in career-mode - you start with a certain amount of in-game cash, and then earn in-game sim money when completing career missions / activities. You use this in-game money for aircraft repairs & purchases, etc.
No real-world bank account is needed! 
Yes, I can also reassure you no real money is spent in Career mode. The only time that may happen is if you choose to buy a marketplace plane that is career mode compatible. But, that is choice. Career mode has many stock planes to choose from and no need to spend another (real money) penny or cent.
Also, just to ask, what part of the career mode made you think real money was involved?
My first and only mission available is from an airfield in Wales. I have to rent it for GBP1.69 for a day or about GBP10 for a week. These sums are to buy the necessary simverse coins for the rental.
Well, I just logged in to take a screenshot for you, selected a different icon and the mission is now available for free! Bizarre, but I appreciate your advice and will follow you through my early career. It’s brilliant to have someone like you around!
There are many youtube videos out there on 2024 career mode. Mostly dated from December ish last year but get less until now. Some are a little out of date because we have had a few updates but the principles are the same. It’s about earning enough money (or credits in this case) to buy your own company and fill your hangar with planes for the different companies.
Your 1st plane you can buy for your 1st company will be at a much reduced credit cost. It is a 2nd hand plane and will need some maintenance before flying it. So earn enough credits in employee mode to buy your company and plane and to maintain it.
So which company to buy, because as you will see while you grind out the cr, specialities and licences, different mission types pay at different rates. You can either buy a cargo company which has a C172 as a first plane and is obviously cheaper and requires around 40 to 50000.00 cr to start comfortably. OR You can grind to around 250,000.00 cr for a medevac company whose 1st plane is a C208.
Once you get that 1st plane you can fly in freelance. Look after it and insure it well until you get a few others. If you crash it it is a long road to earn enough credits to buy a 2nd plane which will be at full price 
Happy flying 
Another little hint, practice a new plane in free flight to familiarise yourself especially if you choose the C208. She can be a bit wobbly to land. That 1st plane is golden, don’t sell it because the resale price is higher than you bought it for. The next plane is FULL price!
@MaghullDave
I don’t fly in career-mode, so don’t know what you were seeing. Was it something like this offer in green:
I’m wondering if what you were seeing was an optional airport upgrade offer (just a guess). Folks who regularly fly in career-mode would have a better idea than me, though.
Typically I have never seen an offer with a plane - they are usually airport offers.
The one you identify is an airport. Perhaps another career mode person may have found a plane but Im suggesting that in the “Employee mode” this would be entirely unnecessary as all the planes do not need to be bought - they are all free. I cant test Freelance because I already own too many planes. It is a mystery.
This is what missions in employee look like. Im wondering if the Marketplace was clicked on by mistake. You also can’t get to the ingame, in company plane purchasing marketplace unless you have a company already.
Thanks everyone. I think that, because Welshpool was the departure airport, I felt I needed to click on that. Amazingly, clicking on the Mission icon instead worked! All’s well that ends well and I’ve successfully done my first mission. I really appreciate the interest and care shown by so many on this thread. I shall stay with it, and maybe one day I can help another newbie.
Most likey airports all airports can be used in career mode
I’d say approx 12 aircraft in the MP are available in career mode, but half of those are still locked behind locked mission criteria like heavys, this has been rather disappointing, the one thing career mode needs most is more aircraft and liveries
Glad it worked out and you were able to enjoy your first mission!
Thanks @Pilotfirst9999 and @SmotheryVase665 for sharing your experise. 
Trying to take my CPL exam but every time I start to accelerate down the runway to take off I get a red warning message about landing gear malfunction and then tyre malfunction. I’m definitely not doing anything wrong. Has this happened to anyone else? Thanks.
What speed are you rotating? try rotating around 55 to 60kts. I’m hoping a slightly earlier rotation lifts you off before the message. I don’t recall that message ever but it might be new since we have had so many updates since Nov 24.
Be a slightly lower attitude after t/o to get your 75kts in your climb. then resume.
Oh, and, make sure you do your walk around and check the tyres - just an extra thought
Another thing to try is slight, back pressure on your yoke. These are things to try but it might be as simple as signing out of the sim and signing in again and retry the test
Tried again today. I don’t get to rotate: as soon as I start to accelerate down the runway, I get the red warning messages. There seem to be so many bugs in FS24: nearly every day, I get a freeze and have to re-boot my PC as well as lots of silly things going wrong during missions (taking off with passenger door open, etc, etc).
See if there are any controller conflicts.
Thanks. I posted here because MS said they would probably not reply for a few days. In fact, they responded last night and said that this was one of the known bugs in Career Mode and that the solution is to reset my Career, start from another place (and cross my fingers?). Thanks again.
I hope it doesn’t make you start from scratch again. That is painful. I hope your progress is safe. Good luck 
Yes, I had to start from scratch but it was fine. There was the compulsory induction and then straight to PPL exam (I got 399/400, so it was worth it 
). Now, a few missions to get XP’s and then try CPL again. Thanks again for your support
Let’s hope the CPL is trouble free. It is a quite straightforward exam from one airport to another, Bob Hope I think it was.
