Plan a career in IT: goal - £100k PA.

Diddums

Diddums

Diddums

Caporegime
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Been toying with this idea for a few years now, on and off. I'm not afraid of a challenge and love coding, but never really pursued it.

Let's say the goal is £100k PA, a few questions:

  • How quickly can this realistically be achieved (I'm not a dreamer who expects a massive salary from the get go)?
  • What sort of starting salary would I be looking at?
  • What would be the best / most specialized field to look in to?
  • What would be the best steps to take?

For clarity, I'm on a decent salary already and have worked my way up from £50 a day moving furniture, to living very comfortably and I suspect I'll be on £100k in my current line of work in a few years anyway, so this would be more of a quality of life move than a financial one.

Any ideas?
 
LiE said:
£100k in IT isn't easy, most senior roles sit around 80K for techies who are **** hot. I work in a niche area of IT where salaries are highly competitive due to not enough talent in the market. I've got 13 years experience doing this and to get £100K I'd need to move into a lead architect role. I'm on £68k now by choice but maybe moving and jumping up to a package over £80k.
Click to expand...

Excellent, thanks. So the stories of IT gonks driving around in wrapped Lambos isn't as prevalent as some would have me believe then.

You're on slightly more than me so using you as an example I'd need to have a ton of experience before I can earn what I do now, in my next promotion I'll be on 70ish so this has certainly brought my head back to earth.

Maybe I should just bite the bullet and start my business, I know that people like @dLockers will always need decent tradesmen :p
 
Just popping in to say I'm still reading this and really appreciate all the input everyone's given, some seriously good insight here and it's made me think twice of where I am career wise and where I want to be.

I've just accepted a new role as the technical manager of one of the UK's most prestigious museums (think Ben Stiller ;)) so I've got my work cut out on that one for a bit, it's far off the £100k target but it's a step in the right direction, and I think with some focus on the more corporate side of my industry (contract management, P&L, etc) I could probably push for the £100k in the next few years.

As for why £100k?

I started in London in 2006 moving furniture for £50 a day. I've pushed myself and am currently on £60k and I want to continue pushing. I have very personal reasons for needing to show up certain people in my history, and to prove to myself that despite having an extremely difficult youth, I'm still able to achieve something, and the proof of that is continuously improving my success levels in life, despite my very challenging youth and lack of education.

It's hard to explain, lets just go with "personal reasons" :p
 
dowie said:
Congrats, less than 1 month to make the first step (quite a contrast to the other thread with a goal like this). Also, I guess if you're motivated then pursuing this sort of target is kinda good in itself, you'll get somewhere with it... even if you don't hit the target immediately. The museum thing might be nice as a way of getting some different experience/responsibilities even if they're likely not big on pay - the equivalent role in a profitable organisation which you might pivot to in a couple of years' time likely pays a lot more too.
Click to expand...

It's weird, this time last year I was kicked off a site for unknowlingly exposing fraud within the client's own business, I was then kicked up a gear in to my current role (hard services manager at the National Physical Laboratory) which has taught me more in the last 11 months than any other role I've ever been in.

I've moved from a mindset of "take what you can get and be grateful" to "I know my value, I know what I can bring to a client and I know where I want to be and how to get there".

It's weird, it's hard to explain. I think that being an uneducated filthy job stealing immigrant affected my confidence a lot when I first started but slowly working my way up from unblocking toilets for crap clients that nobody wants to managing the entire engineering team for one of the most prestigious clients in the country has helped me gain the confidence I need.

Now it's just a case of ticking the educational boxes and applying for jobs that I'd consider "out of my reach" and seeing what happens. I know I can satisfy the needs of a £100k+ job easily, it's just a case of jumping through the necessary hoops.

Apologies for the rambling, but the old grey matter has kicked in to life and this is great stuff for me to read back at a later date. Yes, GD has become my notebook.

"Dear Diary..."
 
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