UK IT Job Market

Trojan · 27 Mar 2010 at 02:14

I'm currently living in Australia however I may be returning back to the UK in the next 12 months. I'm just wondering what the state of the UK market is in terms of IT jobs, specifically in the north? Are there many 3rd line Wintel SysAdmin roles about? Are the roles paying well?

Ideally I'd be looking for a position within a medium to large enterprise rather than a small shop as that's where my experience lies. I've got a couple of MCPs, am in the process of getting my MCITP Enterprise, and have around 5 years 3rd line experience with 8 or 9 years in IT in total. Although I'm mainly Windows focussed, I can find my way around HP-UX and various linux distros, and have a lot of experience with VMWare ESX3.5 and vSphere 4.

My current position is around 30% support to 70% strategic and project work. Am I likely to find it difficult finding a similar, well paid position given the current economic climate? Or are good SysAdmins in demand over there?

s0ck · 27 Mar 2010 at 10:47

I'd stay where you are if I was you

bigredshark · 27 Mar 2010 at 17:30

I'd say good luck finding a 3rd line windows position that doesn't want a completed MCSE/MCITP, we're recruiting senior Windows sysadmins (well, one additional) at the moment but that'd be a minimum standard for us. My feeling is the market in general is picking up down south but I can't say much about the rest of the country as I've utterly no interest in working there!

VeNT · 27 Mar 2010 at 18:39

bigred what kinda pay scale is that on? thinking of finishing my MCSE and moving on from 1st/2nd line but not sure if I should go for that or project managing.

bigredshark · 27 Mar 2010 at 18:55

VeNT said:
bigred what kinda pay scale is that on? thinking of finishing my MCSE and moving on from 1st/2nd line but not sure if I should go for that or project managing.

I don't know exactly what we're offering in this case but our pay scale for a senior sysadmin (3rd/4th line equiv) is generally somewhere in the region £35-50k depending on ability. They're probably doing something like 1/3 project work and 2/3 support I'd guess.

oddjob62 · 27 Mar 2010 at 21:32

bigredshark said:
I don't know exactly what we're offering in this case but our pay scale for a senior sysadmin (3rd/4th line equiv) is generally somewhere in the region £35-50k depending on ability. They're probably doing something like 1/3 project work and 2/3 support I'd guess.

Bah... would be ideal for me... in about a year's time. Have promised to stay at current place till at least next year.

Trojan · 27 Mar 2010 at 22:52

s0ck said:
I'd stay where you are if I was you

Heh, still a possibility, but it's looking increasing likely that I'll be heading back over there.

bigredshark said:
I'd say good luck finding a 3rd line windows position that doesn't want a completed MCSE/MCITP, we're recruiting senior Windows sysadmins (well, one additional) at the moment but that'd be a minimum standard for us. My feeling is the market in general is picking up down south but I can't say much about the rest of the country as I've utterly no interest in working there!

I'll have finished my enterprise MCITP by the time I get back to the UK so that wouldn't be an issue. Are companies really still wanting MCSEs? I can't imagine 2k3 is on anything but a decline.

Dist · 28 Mar 2010 at 15:28

Trojan if you don't mind me asking, how tough is the MCITP? I'm looking to pick up some microsoft certifications after I finish my degree but am unsure if I should get the microsoft self study books and go for the MCITP sever administrator (which I can then advance to Enterprise administrator later on, as enterprise administrator requires everything that server admin does, but just a couple things extra) or should someone with no previous MS certifications go for something like an MCSE?

The MS website says that the MCITP Enterprise administrator is designed for people with years of experience and managing 250+ users over at least 3 sites with multiple domain controllers, I have none of this but the Cisco CCNA says that is for people with 2 or 3 years experience and I found the CCNA not too difficult without any job experience.

s0ck · 28 Mar 2010 at 17:40

MCSE is done and dusted.

There's nothing you can't teach yourself if you're bored enough

Ev0 · 28 Mar 2010 at 23:23

A friend at work recently did the MCITP EA course at Firebrand, 13 days straight, fun.

Perfect for him though, he's been working in the field for god knows how long so not one of these 'paper mcses', just a good enough way to get it all done in one relatively quick go.

Out of the 12 or so who took the course only 2 actually passed everything, he even did the SA pro exam as well to get that one as well (arguably no point if you have EA but still).

I might be bringing my run of never having got an MS cert soon as I reckon I should take a couple of exams soon, looking at 70-401 and 70-673.

oddjob62 · 28 Mar 2010 at 23:32

Ev0 said:
A friend at work recently did the MCITP EA course at Firebrand, 13 days straight, fun.

Perfect for him though, he's been working in the field for god knows how long so not one of these 'paper mcses', just a good enough way to get it all done in one relatively quick go.

I did my MCSE+2 self taught, although i had been working with the products for 2-3 years. Study weekend, exam monday, for 10 weeks.

As Ev0 says... there are plenty of MCSEs out there who have no experience and have just used brain dumps. If they come up against someone who knows their stuff in an interview it will soon show.

Trojan · 29 Mar 2010 at 08:07

Dist said:
Trojan if you don't mind me asking, how tough is the MCITP? I'm looking to pick up some microsoft certifications after I finish my degree but am unsure if I should get the microsoft self study books and go for the MCITP sever administrator (which I can then advance to Enterprise administrator later on, as enterprise administrator requires everything that server admin does, but just a couple things extra) or should someone with no previous MS certifications go for something like an MCSE?

The MS website says that the MCITP Enterprise administrator is designed for people with years of experience and managing 250+ users over at least 3 sites with multiple domain controllers, I have none of this but the Cisco CCNA says that is for people with 2 or 3 years experience and I found the CCNA not too difficult without any job experience.

I'd suggest that if you could do the CCNA then you wouldn't have any problems getting your MCITP exams using just the self study books. That's all I'm using, but I do work day in day out in an enterprise position so am already aware of all of the technologies and how they work from a high level perspective.

I would echo what others have said regarding paper MCSEs / MCITPs though. It's all well and good getting the qualifications, but when you come to interview or your first day on the job, it's going to show through that you don't have the experience to back it up.

Ev0 said:
A friend at work recently did the MCITP EA course at Firebrand, 13 days straight, fun.

Perfect for him though, he's been working in the field for god knows how long so not one of these 'paper mcses', just a good enough way to get it all done in one relatively quick go.

Out of the 12 or so who took the course only 2 actually passed everything, he even did the SA pro exam as well to get that one as well (arguably no point if you have EA but still).

I wouldn't mind doing that myself rather than doing the self study but unfortunately I've not got the company funding to pay for it!

Ev0 said:
I might be bringing my run of never having got an MS cert soon as I reckon I should take a couple of exams soon, looking at 70-401 and 70-673.

You're in a OS/software deployment role then I take it? Would rather you than me. As good as SCCM is (and I do think it's a great product), it just doesn't interest me in the slightest!

oddjob62 said:
I did my MCSE+2 self taught, although i had been working with the products for 2-3 years. Study weekend, exam monday, for 10 weeks.

Wish I had the time on a weekend to do that! It's all study on a weekday evening for me which unfortunately means only a couple of hours a night, max.

mast3r · 29 Mar 2010 at 08:18

I have been trying to study for my MCP's for 4 years, i have managed to cover about 4 pages!

I dont know if its being lazy or not having time.

Sp00n · 29 Mar 2010 at 09:17

Doing my 70-294 in a fortnight, boss requires it for our gold status so I dont have much choice in the matter but I think its probably time I got some qualifications

Ev0 · 29 Mar 2010 at 09:38

Trojan said:
You're in a OS/software deployment role then I take it? Would rather you than me. As good as SCCM is (and I do think it's a great product), it just doesn't interest me in the slightest!

More of an asset/configuration management role as well as security, got my CISSP done and dusted so looking for the next thing so thought may as well finally get round to doing those 2!

Handle the os deployment (which I don't use SCCM for, too slow

) and software stuff but tbh it takes up so little of my time now as it's setup nicely.

I've been an SMS geek for years though (started this job as an SMS contractor and ended up staying)

Dist · 29 Mar 2010 at 15:11

Trojan said:
I would echo what others have said regarding paper MCSEs / MCITPs though. It's all well and good getting the qualifications, but when you come to interview or your first day on the job, it's going to show through that you don't have the experience to back it up.

All I expect the qualifications to do is just help me start off a career, and i've seen even first line support roles require a degree or certifications, so I figure if I have a degree AND certifications, well perhaps that will give me a little edge over anyone else who is applying for a 1st line support role without experience. I don't expect any ammount of qualifications to let me just jump into the deep end, I just want to be able to get a good 1st line support or other basic entry level IT/networking job for hopefully a good company that I can advance in.

VeNT · 29 Mar 2010 at 17:35

I really don't see why 1st line support requires a degree OR certifications tbh.
having worked in a 1st line position for the last year and having neither I'm OVERQUALIFIED compared to my peers. Although I don't have as much CS exp as they do.
1st line I can see why that would be needed but 1st line no way.

fabkat · 29 Mar 2010 at 19:06

All the MS Certs are just a money maker for MS, its a pity to get some jobs you need them, as someone pointed out earlier just because you are MCSE, mcp etc etc it doesnt mean you what your talking about with all the braindumps about it makes it pretty easy to do. IT job market way up North is pretty dead.

vidda · 29 Mar 2010 at 21:37

I have to ask - how long would it take to become an MCITP? I breezed through my RHCE (Red Hat) with 100% [not to boast] but apart from experience it didn't take long to get the actual qualification.

I have just set up a greenfield 2008 R2 environment almost single-handedly configuration wise (hardware wise other guys shipped them) at my company with Forest Roots, multiple DC's per site across 10 sites as well as integrate RHEL and various other things such as samba and squid with the Active Directory. The major help I got was with the GPO's but that was a factor of time more than anything else. This was with little to no experience beforehand except from *ahem* Linux samba DC tied together with LDAP for Windows XP

Would be nice to know as my boss is offering me the qualification but the MS website for training probably has a little too much information to take in at once. :/

Dist · 30 Mar 2010 at 05:18

On the subject of 1st line support and entry level IT/Networking jobs, it's a little early for me to realy look as I don't finish my degree till the end of the year, but does anyone either know any good companies to try and start off with, or happen to know a good list of companies? I ask because I have never had to job search before, and although most IT type companies I have looked at have a careers link on their website I am most likely overlooking a large portion of decent IT companies simply because I have never known about them (such as ISPs or companies that deal with other businesses rather that to a home user). Also, those here who have started a IT career in 1st line support or similar, do many companies allow you to advance to better positions or do most people just work in support for a few years to get the require experience to leave and hope for a career at a better company?