Market rate for IT jobs

Wow, so basic stuff then. And I meant both those tech questions and the actual interview questions.
 
There's a surplus of people at the lower end of the market which is driving the average wage down I'd imagine. Every man and his dog is currently running an IT business around these parts and this is a part of the world that isn't the most computer literate.
 
I was looking into the site earlier. It's crazy the difference 40 miles can do!

And, I am VERY lucky with my current and previous jobs in terms of pay haha. I'm on about £15k more than I should be apparently.

Mind you, I always lived by the rule of being paid the same wage as your age... Anyone else on £45k in IT inside a support role?
 
Problem tends not to be the pay/banding but the job description from what I've seen, especially the difference between 2nd and 3rd line support, which seems very blurry reading some descriptions over the past couple of years. Partly why I left for the IT security/management (CISP/CISM) type roles instead. At least on the whole the pay is better and future far more secure, vastly less boring too.
 
No offense intended but I'd say you want to get out of 1st line ASAP.

If you aren't in line for a promo or aren't being trained in something more than call triaging within 6 months, hunt new jobs where you're promised to do more. If you're somewhere for a year, it's better to side step.

If you already have resonable IT knowledge, then try and land a 2nd line from here 6 months point. If not, then some self learning is a good idea. You can teach yourself *nix or do some MS certs.

Be proactive and you can be earning ~30k (or at least mid 20s outside a city) a year after a couple of years once you hit 3rd line If you stay with a company too long thinking they're going to train you, you're screwing yourself.

That said, better to take a crap wage in a small firm that'll train you and have some real skills within 2 years than earn high for 1st / 2nd line and learn nothing.

If you aren't interested in roles within IT and self learning, you shouldn't do these jobs with any intention of a future, as it's no different from any call centre role then.
 
Halfmad said:
Problem tends not to be the pay/banding but the job description from what I've seen, especially the difference between 2nd and 3rd line support, which seems very blurry reading some descriptions over the past couple of years. Partly why I left for the IT security/management (CISP/CISM) type roles instead. At least on the whole the pay is better and future far more secure, vastly less boring too.
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True, I've gone from basic on site engineer at a government site in Aldermaston, to a 1st liner (step back, but vastly different), to a 1st/2nd line in the same company in a short time. Then mostly a 2nd liner carrying an apprentice and working on overflow 1st line. This is a very low description and in fact very inaccurate to the actual work required. Which was a lot more demanding that initially advertised!

Then into a site operations role which again has stepped back in terms of tech requirement but more management. As I have multiple sites I juggle that I support.

Hard to explain, more responsibility = more pay. On paper though, and in the interview, the job seemed much more technically demanding. Sadly not. As I like to push my self to learn new skills. However, they have a TONNE of IT staff all over the world (large international company, so if I don't bugger up looking after these sites, no reason I can't ask to be relocated to maybe... Madrid... haha.).

So I'm jumping on other teams, particularly networking asking to spend a bit of time with them each week either looking at calls they have, listening in on conference calls regarding network issues around other sites. And just general info from the network guys. Hopefully to brush up and join in with them and help out with the smaller stuff. Basically, I want my foot in the door on that side of things. Can never hurt and people always want someone with network experience.
 
It depends on the role/industry... but 12k is seriously depressing - I'd suggest anyone who lives in or near London and is considering some form of support role within IT should consider the financial services sector - despite the industry suffering at the moment the starting salary even for 1st line support is significantly higher than that.
 
dowie said:
It depends on the role/industry... but 12k is seriously depressing - I'd suggest anyone who lives in or near London and is considering some form of support role within IT should consider the financial services sector - despite the industry suffering at the moment the starting salary even for 1st line support is significantly higher than that.
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What would a well travelled 3rd liner expect as an opening salary in the financial services sector?
 
I started out with my current employer in 1st line on 22k with SC clearance which I didn't quite realize at the time was very reasonable indeed. Since then, they are now taking on new 1st line staff at 16k. At the time I joined, the department was only 6 months old (Had relocated the service from Crawley to Doncaster). It was sold to me as a "Technical Service Desk" role, however it became quickly apparent that is was just a basic help desk role, hence the inevitable drop in salary for new starters.

I now work in our in-house Data Center and get 26k basic +3k shift bonus.
 
Steve_bullockuk said:
I started out with my current employer in 1st line on 22k with SC clearance which I didn't quite realize at the time was very reasonable indeed. Since then, they are now taking on new 1st line staff at 16k. At the time I joined, the department was only 6 months old (Had relocated the service from Crawley to Doncaster). It was sold to me as a "Technical Service Desk" role, however it became quickly apparent that is was just a basic help desk role, hence the inevitable drop in salary for new starters.

I now work in our in-house Data Center and get 26k basic +3k shift bonus.
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Don't suppose you want to share who that is?
 
It's shocking how low the starting salary of some IT jobs seems to be now. 26 years ago in 1987 my starting salary was £8250. Admittedly that was in London, but it was nearly 3 decades ago! It shows thepoor state of the industry I think, as well as the fact it was a niche role back then and nowadays most people have some amount of IT proficiency.
 
Totally Hades, it's the fact that the basic level for "young people" in IT is pretty good, so you have a lot of them. You have to go for a niche product or specialty to really make the most of it.
 
agnes said:
Ah, well I hope the site is of some use haha.

Didn't think it was that low! I was on £16,000 9 years ago putting servers together. Not an ounce of IT knowledge to me. Then I got into it and my mate got me into computer games... Suddenly, the geek in me came out. Now I'm on £45,000 at 25 years old. Not far from 2nd line, but as I said, my current role is a lot of responsibility. I spend at least 1 days of the week heading to other sites and often do long days. But still enjoy it :D
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That is not bad for your line of work, Im 3rd line and not that much better than that...
My mate is in 3rd line SAN/Server support and earns 35K - keep telling him to move on..
 
Should be fun when the auditors come in and see he's on 45k for 1st line. :)

As said, try and focus yourself in specialist areas rather than just being 'generic' IT. System Center is seeing a huge boost now. ConfigMgr and OpsMgr especially. I've recently moved into an OpsMgr role (I did a lot of it at my old job just as one of those 'have a look at this' projects) and I'm inundated with offers. Considering going fully contracting doing it in the future.
 
The problem is there are no official definitions of roles industry wide. 1st line in one company can be the lowest of the low earning no more than 12k in one company (and as we have seen here) mean something else at another and earn £45k.

Worthy is talking about "ConfigMgr and OpsMgr" but they are meaningless to me and I have been doing this game for 12 years now. I am assuming they are some kind of pieces of software.

Support (1st/2nd/3rd etc..) are generally the least technical of the IT roles. As you progress through them you usually start thinking you know everything there is to know, as you get further up the chain and mature you realise how little you know and eventually you either specialise or become a SysAdmin who are more highly technical and skilled generalists.

I hire SysAdmins mostly Linux with some Windows skills. I don't touch anyone that has a purely support background - it is amazing reading some CVs and talking to people how clueless they often are. You could seem to be the most technical skilled person out there but the amount of people who don't realise that is only in comparison to the people they are working with. Maybe right now you are the "go to guy!", but you head into a decent company - particularly a smaller start up in an area like Shoreditch which has a high concentration of exceptionally skilled people and you will quickly become humble. I know I did when I joined a team of crusty FreeBSD Sysadmins at an ISP about 10 years ago and quickly learnt I didn't know as much as I thought I did.
 
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