IT Jobs - The best?!

[GSXRMovistar]

As odd as it sounds there is a decent amount to be nade in high end hardware work ( enterprise level not Intel stuff ) , a decent Unix / SAN hardware engineer doing break/fix and installs can make anything from £40-70k though you would need to be prepared for standby and some unsociable hours to earn those figures

If it's in the financial sector even hardware engineers working on standard Wintel kit can easily earn £50-100K if they don't mind doing the long unsocialable hours.

Although obviously these sort of roles/pay brackets will want people with couple of years experience doing the same.

 

[doublehelix2]

Depends what you're consulting in.
I know security consultants who command 500 a day minimum.
*n

That's pretty sweet. What sort of range is the max they can get, and what sort of work would they be doing?

 

[caff]

SAP consultants can get about 700 a day.

You'd have to ask them how they justify that sort of salary. Bear in mind they'd charge you for even asking the question.

 

[GarethDW]

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.

This man speaks the truth. Although I got into Accenture without a 1st and without being attractive.... it's not very common but it can be done.

When I was still with them, starting salaries at ACN were very good - including a very nice golden handshake. However, ACN has changed massively over the years... they largely moved out of the consulting arena and into the outsourcing field. Many consultants were either being let go (if they'd been on the bench and weren't chargeable for long periods at a time) or were pushed into the newly-created (at the time) Accenture Technology Solutions, or ATS. ATS salaries were considerably lower than those of the traditional ACN, and the work was nothing like the "proper" consultants were doing.

This may no longer be the case. I left a few years ago now, however
looking quickly at the current positions on ACN's website suggests that things are still the same. Plus ça change.... plus c'est la même chose.

Oh, and I completely agree with the comment about surviving the first year at ACN. I knew countless people that either resigned during the first 12 months, or received an Octel from their Partner saying they were being "let go". I managed 3 years before I decided that there were other things more important in life than working for ACN.

Anyway, all this is irrelevant as only having an HND is insufficient to get an interview at ACN. I've since discovered this can be a short-sighted approach, as I know some incredibly talented people that have oodles of experience and no degree. It did seem to work for ACN, though, as there were some ridiculously intelligent people working there... although with the move to outsourcing, I'm not sure whether ACN has the same "pulling power" as a potential employer that it used to have.

 

[GarethDW]

Depends what you're consulting in.
I know security consultants who command 500 a day minimum.
*n

That's pretty sweet. What sort of range is the max they can get, and what sort of work would they be doing?

I work in security for a financial organisation... although as a permie not a contractor. However I've seen contractor rates go anywhere up to £750 p/day for people with the right skills and experience.

As for what sort of work they'd be doing, it's likely to include all of the following... impeccable network design skills including firewall configuration, routing, switching, IDS design/configuration, network access control, 802.1x, VPNs, PKI, risk analysis/management, etc...

 

[intellix]

a few pages back i was being slashed for saying 46k now we've got people on 75k+

Do we have any game designers, developers here because I can imagine they are fantastic jobs...

Programming side... what languages are the best to know for most money etc because in job terms its not all about being the most efficient language C++ etc but i can imagine its also about time taken to make etc (something quick in VB)

 

[Solaris]

I'm 20 and a unix admin. Got experience in Linux, solaris, hp-ux, windows, netapp filers, oracle, mysql, apache, weblogic, tomcat, networking, jboss, java and still under 30k a year. IT jobs definately demand experience these days, hence why I didnt go uni.

 

[z3b3dy]

Well even us 'web developers' can still do OK (is that IT ), I'm my own boss and have been working in the industry for nearly 8 years (I have no formal IT education and have never been to any training courses). I make nearly 6 figures a year now and all I'm doing is building websites!

 

[Solaris]

Well even us 'web developers' can still do OK (is that IT ), I'm my own boss and have been working in the industry for nearly 8 years (I have no formal IT education and have never been to any training courses). I make nearly 6 figures a year now and all I'm doing is building websites!

Guessing that isnt just frontpage...

What you code in?

 

[z3b3dy]

Guessing that isnt just frontpage...

What you code in?

Just the usual XHTML, CSS and Javascript with a rather large amount of PHP thrown in on the side.

 

[Vanilla]

This mind sound daft but... what exactly do you do?

Surely its more complex than 'You need this many disk drives'?

I work for one of the major Storage players (well, THE storage player really). I'm a Pre-Sales Consultant. I work with one or many sales people to assist them with technical information, presentations, bids, advice, etc. My job is to make sure the customer is getting a solution that is technically sound and meets their requirements. Most of the time I work directly with customers.

These days i'm mostly finance industry based so I'm the consultant aligned to around 12 major banks and finance houses. Most of the time they can work out how many disk drive they need I give input on new platforms, advise on strategy and keep a relationship going with everyone from the admins to the CTO.

There is a lot more to the storage industry than just how many disks you need! It's about all the different platforms, backup, archive, green IT, virtualisation, tape, distaster recovery, business continuance, etc.

New data center? OK, this is what you need to take into account, this is how you will replicate, this is what you should buy but make sure to buy extra of xyz because of xyz, why don't you just pay us to take all of this crap off your plate?

I'll have maybe 4/5 meetings a week, spend some of the week training, some doing internal paperwork, answering emails, etc. I'm not a billable resource so I can do as I please, I have no utlisation goals.

I'm not a Solution Architect - I don't design in detail - just at a high level. I'm not part of implementation - I can't deploy anything. I'm purely pre-sales which is, in my opinion, where it's best to be in terms of money & general fun.

I do all the wining and dining, track days, corporate fun days, etc. I have my own expenses, I speak to my management once a month and report to no one regularly. I just work well with the sales people and get on with it - you get left alone then.

It is hard though. I work constantly, even put hours in at the weekend. I have a crackberry so i'm that guy sitting there glued to it

There is lots of travel. In 2007 for work I went to Ireland three times, Greece twice, Latvia one, Germany once and the US twice (Orlando and San Francisco). Already in 2008 i'm booking tickets for New York, Boston, Vegas and Ireland for various work related events, visits and meetings

...and that's what I do.

Edit: Booking tickets for Ireland is actually not strictly true - we're taking the jet Really. Best way to travel! Been on it twice, it's great.

 

[Jimmeh]

I'm fairly surprised Trade Floor support hasn't been mentioned. These jobs are invariably only available in London but they're basically Support Analyst roles in an extremely stressful environment. The money is really good for the role and the hours are normally sociable. I did it for a year and it was an invaluable one and really enjoyable. You'll probably need 24 months experience for such a role in today’s environment.

I am now an IT Infrastructure Manager for a high profile Insurance/Re-Insurance company although I don't want to digress as to my salary.

I have no qualifications other than a BSc. Just confidence, a proven track record and a good work ethic.

Consultancy isn't for me, and won't be for me in 10 years. I like the pension schemes, health options, share options, paid holiday, job security and yearly bonuses that large companies offer. All of this tot up and basically are comparable to what I would be earning overall as a consultant... not for me.

 

[melbourne720]

Interesting post Vanilla - I wouldn't do it, but I know plenty of people who would love your lifestyle

 

[Topgun]

Don't listen to the naysayers. I graduated with a 2:2 computer sicence degree last year and got a job in enterprise managed hosting at £40k plus excellent training and benefits. I have since left my job as the hours were to unsociable and I will be contracting for twice what i was previously on.

 

[Fr0dders]

to be fair, there are exceptions. Im not sayiing you cant get a good job, im just saying that with a degree, by and large you join a long que of people with similar qualifications

Aim high by all means, but dont be supprised if when you attend the interview, there are 2 / 3 others with the same qualifications as you, but the guy who'se been in the job 5 years gets it instead.

 

[nero120]

Been a microsoft dev for 3 years. Started in 1st line support after uni and after a year became a junior dev. Am currently working on MOSS 2007 and expect to leave my current job this summer to go into a primary MOSS dev role. Had agencies ringing me up offering roles of no less than 40k. It's a nice area to go into if you can learn how to build MOSS solutions with little or no support from Microsoft themselves and a terribly temperamental product!

 

[[TW]Fox]

Don't listen to the naysayers. I graduated with a 2:2 computer sicence degree last year and got a job in enterprise managed hosting at £40k plus excellent training and benefits. I have since left my job as the hours were to unsociable and I will be contracting for twice what i was previously on.

Who is going to pay a contracting rate to somebody with a years experience in the industry, tops? Neive people?

 

[KoolMoD]

Are graduate schemes really the best route into the IT sector anymore then? I graduated with a 1st Class degree in IT last year, and spent most of my final year applying to graduate schemes. I managed to get into one of the big blue-chip companies, and have been there for almost 6 months now, and to be honest I'm really disappointed with my experience so far.

I shan't bore you lot with the reasons why I think this particular graduate scheme is pants, but I'm interested to know whether people in the sector feel it's important to get onto and complete them? I'm working outside London in Hampshire and getting paid around £24k for this, so to me this isn't too bad for a first job out of University. That's part of the reason I'm sceptical about leaving it, because I think I'd struggle to get an "ordinary" job with the same kind of salary. I'm looking to get into the non-technical roles such as Business Analyst / Project Analyst (which is actually the sort of roles I'm doing for my current employer) but I'm finding the experience I'm getting is minimal and pretty worthless so far.

So are graduate schemes important for those coming out of University? Or is it more about gaining experience in the sector, getting paid potentially less money?

 

[Shaz]sigh[]

I work for one of the major Storage players (well, THE storage player really).

Who's that then, I'd imagine you could prolly filter it down to HDS/EMC/NetApp?

 

[doublehelix2]

So for the contarctors who can earn above 500, what would the equivalent be for a permanent employee?