Would you encourage / discourage family or friends on a career in IT?

[vetran]

See how your pay compares India Salary Survey - India Wages - Average Salary in India | PayScale

currently £1 = 103 Indian Rupee.

Because the UKBA allows expenses to be treated as salary to get to the rate for the job to issue the visa, foreign service companies can onshore these bods at more or less the pay they get in India. So if you can do that or like M&S outsource your IT dev / support to these companies why would any company in that position want to offer entry level jobs to residents? Consequently the number of entry level jobs has gone down. Look around you how many young people do you see working in IT?

I discouraged my oldest from a career in IT after he graduated last year and my daughter isn't interested.

Unfortunately its exactly the same in all other jobs unless you physically have to be there.

Finance, Production, Purchasing are all moving offshore.

So its either chimney sweep or surveyor

[lukemg]

And yet we all seem to be working and more people in the UK are working than ever before - OK that is partly cos there are more people and a lot of part-time rubbish jobs but still...
I wouldn't try to sell this tedium to any youth, unless they had a real strong interest. There are a few who turned their IT hobby into a job (usually propellor heads) but most have slid into it like me.
On the other hand you can do work just as boring for a lot less money so it's not all bad !

[vetran]

On the other hand you can do work just as boring for a lot less money so it's not all bad !

this is the real point about IT.

you also get foreign travel and a real insight into the business.

[Sysman]

I wondered how many here shared the views from this survey Parents 'actively discourage' careers in IT - HR Grapevine

Oh, an HR magazine?

[Sysman]

I've actively discouraged my youngest son from IT as a career.

It's got no real future in the face of the Bobs in the software and service space and hardware stopped being anything more than box swapping long ago.

And a little birdie just told me that the big corps who need lots of storage and network people are looking for ways of reducing them too.

For as long as IT is seen as a cost centre, not much will change.

[Project Monkey]

Would you encourage / discourage family or friends on a career in IT?

Sure. Money for old rope it is.

[Project Monkey]

There are so few entry level jobs that there is almost no point unless you are a god like software wizard or something. My brother in law has ignored me and has started a foundation degree in computer science at the OU to become a software contractor as he thinks it is easy money (I tried numerous times to explain the difference between day rate and personal take home but it never sunk in).

Still easy money though.

[CoolCat]

Surely this is only affecting the low grade monkeys?

not at all I know plenty of senior folk out of work, or not working as much of the year as they would like

the unemployment stats do not show the true picture for a number of reasons, one being that many senior IT folk run their savings down rather than claim benefits etc, or have too much savings to bother telling the benefits office they are out of work, or go work in another sector, and so on

the Indian outsourcers have been operating here since around 2000, and have a fair number of folk with 10 + years experience now, which together with the "white veneer" (their words not mine) they hire locally help them decimate British workforces.

frankly the slave trading, tax avoiding, racist, corrupt, bullying, IP thieves, should be kicked out of the country, they are a massive evil

[CoolCat]

Oh, an HR magazine?

Yes and by O2.

O2 are a marketing led company where technology comes very far down their pecking order.

All of their best technology they bought, they have not originated any, so they are not qualified to discuss things like this as if they are an industry leader.

They have given lots of work to Indian outsourcers too.

Their big initiative "online at the core" is a total and utter failure.

They are a failing company who will struggle to make money as their network is just commodity now.

[sal]

Have there ever been all that many entry level jobs? I got into IT by a side route, showing an employer in a different industry that I could solve problems with his computers and I guess a lot of us started that way.

You are probably talking about Software development jobs. I can see plenty of entry level jobs in support roles. A friend of mine landed a junior SQL DBA after couple of months of self-study with his IT skills prior to that being limited to FB, skype, e-mail.