Career Decisions (IT Professionals please read!)

£300 a day isn't a huge amount for a contractor. A lot of the contractors where I work (FS) are on ~£400-£500 per day and thats in Dundee, not Edinburgh or London!

EDIT: my point being that if you had 30 years experience you'd be getting a lot more than £300 per day in pretty much any industry as a contractor.
 
Blackhawk47 said:
I'm fed up of this ****ing discussion now. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out that to be successful you dont need to have a degree. And I'd rather be doing a interesting contract job than a perm job doing helpdesk which IMHO I wouldn't enjoy.
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Disagree. The guy who owns Dell doesn't have a degree. Spielberg is the same. There are thousands out there who don't have a degree and are very successful.

It depends on luck, motivation, focus and many other things on where you get to but you can be very, very successful without a degree.



M.
 
Blackhawk47 said:
I'm fed up of this ****ing discussion now. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out that to be successful you dont need to have a degree. And I'd rather be doing a interesting contract job than a perm job doing helpdesk which IMHO I wouldn't enjoy.
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Why do you think everyone who goes to Uni ends up on a helpdesk :confused:

You don't need a degree to be succesful, but you do need an ability to read, think rationally and understand simple concepts...
 
[TW]Fox;18007286 said:
Depends whether you've actually learnt anything from that experience. I've got 10 years experience playing FPS games and I'm still rubbish at them.
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But in that time other people may have progressed at the same rate as you, so compared to a new person you might be very good, but amongst your regular peers you might still be the same level compared to them.

Or you might be crap and still be bettered by noobs :P
 
jamief said:
£300 a day isn't a huge amount for a contractor. A lot of the contractors where I work (FS) are on ~£400-£500 per day and thats in Dundee, not Edinburgh or London!

EDIT: my point being that if you had 30 years experience you'd be getting a lot more than £300 per day in pretty much any industry as a contractor.
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Of course you will get more offers. It doesn't mean you have to have a degree to get to that point though. Quite a lot of the guys I worked with were getting that much or more. This all started because I said I was a contractor and getting paid £12 ph hour. I did negoiate to get that ad I knew travelling to conventry every week takes it toll and I was paying more for petrol, staying with friends, food and so on York is 30mins from home and Cov was 300 mile round trip each week. I did it the work so I could earn some more £££s and it's another job I can add to my Cv.
 
When I contracted I was brought in to fix some so called professionals work who hadn't actually done it correctly the first time round.

He got £500 a day for god knows how long and failed hard, I got a lot less than that and got it all working very quickly.

Looking back easy to see who actually got it 'right' and who failed :( I so should have asked for more money!
 
I meant to post this a few days ago but some serious Christmas boozing got in the way.

Job Title/Description: High frequency / algo trading systems sales/support/development. (Software / Finance)

Typical day-to-day work: Writing, implementing and supporting HFT systems. Anything from C++/Java development to wining and dining customers via a spot of UNIX support.

Highest qualification (GCSE/Diploma etc): 1x A2 Level.

Job satisifaction (do you enjoy your day-to-day work): I love my job and work with a bunch of highly intelligent, highly motivated people around the same age as me. Great benefits too (free lunches, lots of free boozing, travel etc).

Job security(do you feel you are at risk of having your job outsourced to india?): About 90% secure. I'm in a very small niche and it's a small community so jobs are always changing hands. Little chance of being outsourced.

Salary(optional): Very good.


If I can do the 'patronising older poster' thing for a moment; unless you're on course to go to Cambridge or other top-notch red-brick to read Comp Sci I'd suggest you skip univsersity to start with, there's plenty of time for that later if you find you need / want a degree, and get some experience on the bottom rungs of the ladder which will be infinitely more valuable in the market than a 2:2 in 'IT Technology' from an ex-poly. Do some first line support, learn the ropes and how procedures and companies operate (I worked in a call centre doing first line support, earning a paltry 17k and it was the worst time of my IT career, but I learnt a lot). Network. Meet people in the sectors you want to go in to. Use LinkedIn. Don't specialise too early. Once you've found your feet, find a niche that you enjoy and that can be financially rewarding, if that's what drives you, then concentrate on that. IT is soul destroying if you don't enjoy it.
 
You say it's soul destroying but advise people to go into the most soul destroying part of IT - 1st line support, in a call centre.
How that is better than a degree I don't know!

As has been mentioned, a sandwich degree with a good placement year has to be the best option of experience and a degree.

Unless you are lucky, you will struggle to get back to uni once you are earning full time wages and have responsibilities.
 
It's part of the experience though. You have to do the bad jobs to find the ones you enjoy and you'll likely start at the bottom as a graduate anyway, unless you have a top degree.
 
Blackhawk47 said:
Of course you will get more offers. It doesn't mean you have to have a degree to get to that point though. Quite a lot of the guys I worked with were getting that much or more. This all started because I said I was a contractor and getting paid £12 ph hour. I did negoiate to get that ad I knew travelling to conventry every week takes it toll and I was paying more for petrol, staying with friends, food and so on York is 30mins from home and Cov was 300 mile round trip each week. I did it the work so I could earn some more £££s and it's another job I can add to my Cv.
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I don't know how to emphasise this more, but no one cares about your wage. Its the term contractor we are talking about.
 
Sukh said:
I don't know how to emphasise this more, but no one cares about your wage. Its the term contractor we are talking about.
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Look, I don't know what else to say.

Network Rail Project/packages -> Siemens/Optilan and any other competitors bid for the contract from Network Rail -> a mix of perm/contractors did the work.

This CONTRACT job sounds very very similar to what we were working on:

http://www.railwaypeople.com/rail-job-vacancies/assistant-engineer-82661.html

I'm not going continue this feud where people can't even be bothered to back up their claims.
 
Blackhawk,

It is fine to be temping. Seriously. You're 21 (I think?). That is fine for a first job. There is NO need to be defensive about this sort of thing and comparing yourself with people who have been working years longer than you. :)

Contracting versus temping...very different things i'm afraid. Apply for the jobs you have linked and see what happens. No harm in applying but the people who have commented are almost certainly right. You aren't experienced enough for those roles...but in time you will be.
 
SideWinder said:
Blackhawk,

It is fine to be temping. Seriously. You're 21 (I think?). That is fine for a first job. There is NO need to be defensive about this sort of thing and comparing yourself with people who have been working years longer than you. :)

Contracting versus temping...very different things i'm afraid. Apply for the jobs you have linked and see what happens. No harm in applying but the people who have commented are almost certainly right. You aren't experienced enough for those roles...but in time you will be.
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I am 19, been in 2 contract or temp jobs so far (what ever you like to call it) and currently at a bank which I started at 2 weeks ago. First contract/temp was at Siemens and lasted from March 2009 – July 2010, and then to Optilan from August 2010 – October 2010.

Very first job was just in a computer shop after I had finished college which I did for a couple of months.

Thanks the support/advice. :)
 
Job Title/Description: Desktop Support Officer

Typical day-to-day work: Working on issues on the helpdesk, ordering/replacing phones, FAST, WSUS, EPO as well as remote site work.

Highest qualification (GCSE/Diploma etc): HND in ICT System Support

Job satisifaction (do you enjoy your day-to-day work): HATE IT! Moved here about 8 weeks ago - waiting to hear back from previous company to see if i can get my job back!

Job security(do you feel you are at risk of having your job outsourced to india?): It's quite secure

Salary(optional): 23k
 
Can someone summarise this thread for me? It looked interesting but I can't be bothered to read it because I'm far too busy not temping but contracting in my very permanent job earning vastly more than anyone else in the world. :) [Ok... I skim-read it]
 
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