IT Jobs - The best?!

intellix

intellix

intellix

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Hey, im currently a student studying a HND in IT and will progress onto the degree for Software

What are the best jobs in IT, what do you work as in IT and how much do you get paid etc...

At the moment im looking into IT Consultancy which pays about £46k a year, seems good, any other IT consultants that know what this job requires, is like?
 
intellix said:
Hey, im currently a student studying a HND in IT and will progress onto the degree for Software

What are the best jobs in IT, what do you work as in IT and how much do you get paid etc...

At the moment im looking into IT Consultancy which pays about £46k a year, seems good, any other IT consultants that know what this job requires, is like?
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Your a student and you expect to be a consultant on 46K a year???? I hope you have 10 years in IT before you took the HND otherwise you may struggle to be a consultant when you have not done the job yourself yet..

I work in 3rd line support and love the job, meet new people each day, everyday changes, i have no idea what im doing next week, laptops, projects, printers, networks, servers, blackberrys or even something odder, like fixing a mac lol..

If your going in for the money 1st and job 2nd, you wont last long, imo.

Wish you luck.

Colin
 
Depends what you're consulting in. ;)

I know software consultants that scrape 10 quid an hour...and I know security consultants who command 500 a day minimum. To be a consultant you need to be PERFECT in your speciality. You will be expected to turn up on site, do the job perfectly and disappear.

You will need a lot of experience to move into consulting.

*n
 
You want £46k a year straight out of an HND?

Dream on, I'm afraid. You won't get that doing anything (unless your father runs a massive company where you can get paid lots for not doing anything ;))
 
I'm an I.T consultant, just recently got into the industry. From what I can tell, you can be a consultant in many different areas. I'm classed as a technical consultant, I install and configure IBM software for various clients.

So depending what type of consultant, for what company, the skill set will vary. My base knowledge before being a consultant was in web/graphic design, networking and basic programming. I was then trained in the specifics; SQL, Perl, Tivoli Suite, Unix, etc, etc.

The job involves a lot of travelling. I've been stationed in Canary Wharf London for 2 months, before that I was in Kuwait for 3 weeks. You have to do some documentation, meetings and presentations as well.

Edit:
Regarding Pay. Yes 46k is doable, but to earn that you would have be very good at what you do or be a contractor. I'm on 30k a year, and this is my first job in the industry.
 
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I am a "consultant" (but I hate using the term, as after less than 2 years in the job (and 3 years out of uni), I am not really positioned to consult on any aspect of IT- i.e. consultant implies years on experience and expertese).

I bascially configure and deploy *nix- based applications for mobile phone carriers (I do a lot for Vodafone Global). The systems we deploy are often huge, robust, and very complex, running on top- end Sun servers, expected to support tens of millions of transactions per day, and therefore require an incredible amount of planning and testing to pull off without a hitch. On the side, I am working on some interesting projects, such as developing a system to plot real- time charts and supply intelligent data feedback using live log tailing for one of our large customers.

If you find a job paying 46K out of uni, please tell me because I'll be there like a shot! If it is genuine, they will probably be looking at poaching the top candidates from excellent unis, so will be incredibly tough, as 46K is way above even the likes of Accenture's starting salary.

You'll have to work for an Accenture/ CapGemini kind of company first, as no one in their right mind would hire a uni graduate freelance.

Out of uni I started on 22K working for an IT consultancy firm. I'm still there now (on a fair whack more), but its not a bad starting salary.

Basically I do a LOT of travelling (look at my location), and its not as fun as it sounds, as its hard work, and very tiring, (i.e. last week was jo'burg... Leave Bath at 13:00, get to LHR, straight onto an 11hr overnight flight in economy, arrive 8AM Monday, go straight to the customer, do 10 hrs a day every day, fly back Friday evening, arrive in LHR Saturday at 7AM, get back to Bath by midday, unpack, repack, fly off to Madrid first thing Monday).

If you can cope with that kind of lifestyle, and would enjoy it, it's worth looking into. You are usually given (well I always am but it depends on your company) full expenses, so a car, fuel, accomodation, 3 restaurant meals per day, alcohol, etc are all gratis. If you live permenantly on expenses like I seem to, you can add a minimum of another 10K to your salary to offset the fact your living costs are effectively zero. I haven't paid a penny in rent, food, or bills for over 18 months now.

Just be aware that every consultancy job I have seen has required a first (or a 2:1 from a top university), as the nature of the work means you need to be used to working hard, be organised, able to communicate well, and think on your feet... Having said that, I also started on an HND and fast tracked onto an equivelent degree course and got a first with hons in 4 years from starting the HND (one of which was a sandwich year) do its definately doable for you.

If there is anything else you want to know, just ask :)
 
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Software developing (which I'm assuming you're doing?) will pay more than the generic consulting jobs and will be long term contracts. The thing with consulting is that you could be up to your eyes in it one moment and dead the next. It's very high risk.

Again as the previous guys have said, you need practical experience. Sadly the industry has been flooded with people who replace a hard-drive and then call themselves engineers which has made employees want to have people they know can do the work. So both qualified and experienced is a major requirement.



M.
 
Hi Bes, got any openings... Im bored of Leeds now lol....

I agree there are different types of consulting, but the fact he said 46K a year sounsd to me a higher than normal wage for that type of work and to get that from uni is a little far fectch, unless he/she has experince before hand and maybe the firm he works for sent them to get the HND.

I love the job, but thats why i get paid a decnet wage, i dotn mind doing a 12-15 hour day to get the job done, with no extra pay, its part of the job, now if your in it for cash only and not the job, you wont do this, and therefore be replaced by people who will very quickly, luckly there arnt many of us about lol.. i know, ive worked with a lot of them lol..
 
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penski said:
To be a consultant you need to be PERFECT in your speciality. You will be expected to turn up on site, do the job perfectly and disappear.
Click to expand...

Yikes, so what's happened to all the consultants I've ever worked with? About 90% of consultants I've ever met, in 15 years in the job, don't seem to know their asp from their l2tp :D
 
intellix said:
Hey, im currently a student studying a HND in IT and will progress onto the degree for Software

What are the best jobs in IT, what do you work as in IT and how much do you get paid etc...

At the moment im looking into IT Consultancy which pays about £46k a year, seems good, any other IT consultants that know what this job requires, is like?
Click to expand...

You have no chance to walk in to a job that pays that amount. If you have experience under your belt aswell as passing this HND and other qualifications you may stand alittle chance but I really doubt it. What sort of consultancy were you thinking about doing?

Andr3w1984
 
Get three years of serious software development experience behind you first. Then you'll be able to make a decent amount either contracting or working for a financial institution. I work with a lot of people on £50-60 per hour so there's obviously money to be made.

You won't make really good money until you've got that experience and expertise though. Even then, you'll be expected to work very hard for your money. I know several people who've had to opt out of the European Working Time Directive. :)
 
£46k from an HND. You will be "extremely" lucky if you hand a job like that. I finished my HND last summer and not even on half of what your expecting. So unless you seriously know your stuff, you might have to look else where.
 
andr3w1984 said:
You have no chance to walk in to a job that pays that amount. If you have experience under your belt aswell as passing this HND and other qualifications you may stand alittle chance but I really doubt it. What sort of consultancy were you thinking about doing?

Andr3w1984
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hmm, could start his own business - look at youtube :p
 
Proper consultant: Expert in their field, usually attained through many years of experience in addition to high levels of qualifications. Command high wages becuase quite simply, they know best in most given situations.

Lame pathetic consultant: Half the job titles out there today. It's becoming a very meaningless term - I walked into a local Phones4u the other day and was approached by a 17 year old sales 'Consultant'. Yea, whatever. Consultant is a more posh sounding name than 'IT Helpdesk operative' so it's being given to people with otherwise pretty low end jobs to make them feel better.

I have nothing but respect for the former but virtually none for the latter.
 
1st class degree can get you into Accenture (or you can just be devastatingly pretty ) and if you survive the annual blood-letting you could be on £46K after a few years of working your butt off for 12 hours per day in God-forsaken locations.

An HND wouldn't even get you an interview.

I'm a Technical Architect and I earn a good deal more than £46K but I have 25 years experience in IT. Qualifications for my job are that you should have "been there, done that" and be able to prove it. Widespread experience in multiple industries across multiple system architectures and infrastructures.
 
MikeTimbers said:
1st class degree can get you into Accenture (or you can just be devastatingly pretty ) and if you survive the annual blood-letting you could be on £46K after a few years of working your butt off for 12 hours per day in God-forsaken locations.
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Yup Accenture is tough to get in to. I got some way through the application, but didn't quite make the grade.

Fox: Calling all people who are given the title Consultant (We don't choose it) "lame and pathetic" is akin to calling all BMW drivers "****ers", and I'm sure you're not one of them, are you? :)

Some of us work our butts off and actually don't produce cowboy-ish results.
 
its not straight from the HND into the 46k job, its after you have a degree in programming, which ill get after completing my HND.

You start on 28k a year and 5k for a car then after 6 months of working with them (training included on top of what you know as well) you get around 34k yearly with bonus of about 5k, car allowance of 5k with christmas bonus.

All you need to join is to hold a software degree and feel like you have a gift for programming :D (i dont actually know anyone in this company btw so its not my dad as someone suggested)

10 years of experience before the degree, definately :P (obviously not been programming for that long though)

I'm not saying im going to be on this kind of wage or that I will get the job that im looking at, just going by what ive read (someone also said he knows an IT consultant that makes 100k a year but only what someone said in the pub)

Sorry for creating such an upstir :S
 
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