IT not worth it anymore?

[rge]

Degree??? what good is a degree gonna be when all you read about in these IT rags is how business wants candidates to be business focused? Uni's don't teach that way...and business sure isn't interested in training you..I've had a total of 3 weeks of training in 15 years of IT.

I remind everyone that IT grad's were the least able to find work this year.
http://money.guardian.co.uk/work/sto...844427,00.html

How ironic...plumbers wanting to move into IT and IT pros. wanting to move into plumbing.

I personally am telling anyone who asks if its a good time to move into IT, to take accounting or business administration instead.

Does accounting and business offer better salary and employment prospects, or is it a strong industry?

[snaw]

Are these big contracts outside of the financial sector?

The agents tell me that the going rate for Flash dev is £250 - £300 / day. Yet they keep offering me as low as £175.

I get emails from agents looking for CCIE's for £25 an hour. Doesn't mean they're ever gonna find anyone. But they can offer crap money all day long and regularily do. That's cause generally, IMO, they know SFA about the business they are recruiting in. Or they're form some tulip part of the country trying to recruit into some regionalised govnmt dept who want premiership level players but pay conference wages.

A wise old man (Contractor of course) once gave me a vary insightful peice of advice: You don't get paid what you are worth, you get paid what you can get!

[expat]

Are these big contracts outside of the financial sector?

The agents tell me that the going rate for Flash dev is £250 - £300 / day. Yet they keep offering me as low as £175.

IanIan, are we talking about what is the case, or what agents tell you?

[rootsnall]

Degree??? what good is a degree gonna be when all you read about in these IT rags is how business wants candidates to be business focused? Uni's don't teach that way...and business sure isn't interested in training you..I've had a total of 3 weeks of training in 15 years of IT.

The degree is your entry point to IT or whatever other opportunities may come along. Without it you are limiting your future options. I wouldn't be advising anyone to go into the building trade if they have other decent options open to them, and I'd include doing an IT degree as one.

The 'business focused' talk is just waffle, every IT job I've ever had has been business focussed and you can 'business focus' your CV in 10 minutes.

[bobhope]

The problem is sustainability rather than the rate per se. If you can guarantee £300 - 400/day for 20 years, then you could easily semi-retire in your 40s. Unfortunately, the outlook for IT is somewhat murky.

Take a look at the statistics on average earnings in the UK. The median wage is ~25k. The 90th percentile is something like 45k (gross).

[Sockpuppet]

Hi, can i ask what is a logistician? And how can you earn so much for so few hours?

Its a word I made up... sounds better than logistics gopher. I dont know, it might be a real word who knows.

Basically the roles I do are:

Lean Manufacturing,
Six Sigma Analyst,
PRINCE 2 Practioner,
Logistics Project Analyst,
etc...

I "design" logistics solutions. So thats where your warehouses are, transport links, how many people, layout of warehouses etc etc....

Why do I work so little? Well I can knock out stuff fairly quickly and its really not that hard...more common sense.

[Zippy]

I'd say if you are interested in IT (and it's a HUGE subject), go for the degree. I enjoyed mine so much I went back and did a masters

Qualifications don't seem to be a guarantee of getting a job but you will get a very good all round knowledge, helping you to deal with those situations where you suddenly have to start working in a different environments/languages.

As for the supposed lack of teaching of business skills, I certainly got plenty of that - Communications, presentation skills, project management etc. The roles I have had since have tended to use a blend of technical and business skills (and a fair amount of resilience!).

Good luck with whatever you decide to do

[premiere]

Lifelong friend of mine used to work in IT as a Sybase DBA.

He then left the industry to go to Uni and get a degree in Biochemistry.

Got his degree, then stayed on at Uni to convert his BSc to a Phd.

Got halfway through his Phd and then left after he 'found god'

Now he's doing a 3 year course or something, to become a priest

[SallyAnne]

Lifelong friend of mine used to work in IT as a Sybase DBA.

He then left the industry to go to Uni and get a degree in Biochemistry.

Got his degree, then stayed on at Uni to convert his BSc to a Phd.

Got halfway through his Phd and then left after he 'found god'

Now he's doing a 3 year course or something, to become a priest

Whats the moral of that story then?

[Zippy]

Got halfway through his Phd and then left after he 'found god'

Now he's doing a 3 year course or something, to become a priest

How much does that pay?