Reply to: Current market situation (3rd level support)

[DieScum]

I know for a fact that certain gov departments are paying £150+ to their first tier whilst this is being passed to a second tier supplier for peanuts, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out what this is doing to the poor support guys.

That's quite interesting. I wonder how much that happens.

When people are talking about public sector cuts that is what needs to be cut... thing is you'd probably need a team of good people to make those cuts... and they probably don't have the skills internally...so would probably need some management consultants

[gingerjedi]

any desktop support work going in the SC environment?

NO!

[trsisko]

any desktop support work going in the SC environment?

[expat]

I wish someone had told me... I was beavering away on MoD legacy systems for 3 years before being exposed to the full neo private sector slave trade.

I knew it was coming but didn't expect the changes to be so rapid

It happens very fast. One day you are adding value by using your skills and knowledge, the next day you have become a cost to business rather than an asset.

[gingerjedi]

It's a centralised NOC that i work in, and we manage stuff all over the UK, and yep, it's all ITIL. We have guys that attend site but they are nothing more than a pair of hands.

I used to do the desktop side of things when i first started 10 years ago, and you are right; I actually helped develop a way of automating desktop deployments and allowing self service for the end users. Started moving toward networking after that, plus i hated dealing with the end users.

The desktop infrastructure i now use needs no supported apart from delivering the hardware. The users can re-image and install everything themselves. I've been here for 2 years an only seen a desktop support guy 3 times, and all they were doing was swapping hardware.

I wish someone had told me... I was beavering away on MoD legacy systems for 3 years before being exposed to the full neo private sector slave trade.

I knew it was coming but didn't expect the changes to be so rapid, my first contract after the MoD was outsourced by the first tier outsourcer within the first month of starting. On googling the new outfit I came across their marketing bumf which claimed they could offer support for as little as 2 euro a month per user unit.

I know for a fact that certain gov departments are paying £150+ to their first tier whilst this is being passed to a second tier supplier for peanuts, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out what this is doing to the poor support guys.

HP/EDS are nothing more than parasitic pimps in this arrangement.

[the_duderama]

That is very true and there are still jobs out there it's just that the technical stuff is centralised and what used to be a genuine support role is nothing more than a PC portering and a bit of patching these days.

ITIL has destroyed the fun of fixing things.

It's a centralised NOC that i work in, and we manage stuff all over the UK, and yep, it's all ITIL. We have guys that attend site but they are nothing more than a pair of hands.

I used to do the desktop side of things when i first started 10 years ago, and you are right; I actually helped develop a way of automating desktop deployments and allowing self service for the end users. Started moving toward networking after that, plus i hated dealing with the end users.

The desktop infrastructure i now use needs no supported apart from delivering the hardware. The users can re-image and install everything themselves. I've been here for 2 years an only seen a desktop support guy 3 times, and all they were doing was swapping hardware.

[gingerjedi]

It's American but interesting none the less:

http://www.cioupdate.com/features/ar...fing-in-Q2.htm

At a glance support looks very healthy but you've got to remember the candidate pool is huge compared to other areas.

Lets just hope we don't lag too far behind our American cousins.

[lukemg]

Yes, there will still be some roles about but it is in the death-throes because:
It's either out-sourced or about to be (and they won't pay a premium for staff). Infrastructure will continue to become more resilient, easier to change, maintain and support and a lot cheaper (which means putting resilience in is much more cost-effective too). In short, you need fewer, cheaper staff to support it. Everyone needs to be looking 3-5 years into the future and adapting for that because it is too late when you are obsolete !

[Worzel]

Competition is high here too (in OZ) so it's nothing I'm not used to.. 1 role I was interviewed for recently had 263 applicants...the recruiter told me that only 4 were shortlisted (including myself)

But you also mention rates.. From my research, Infrastructure still sits in between 250-350quid per day. That seems reasonable to me....

263 applicants! I remember watching the news a few weeks back concerning the job market and they reported someone in a non-IT industry complaining that as many as 20 other people are chasing the same job! I wish we had those odds!

Yes there are still some infrastructure roles being "advertised" for £350+ a day but they are almost always for a financial in London who will expect your previous contract to be identical to the one on offer and on top of that the competition will be first class. I've worked with some very talented people and those are the sort of guys I'm competing against right now. I'm good at what I do but if I'm honest they're in a different league! Go down a rung to the £250 per day contracts and it's just a lottery wether you even get a call. At this level the competition is vast and agents will typically squeeze the rate further because they know they have such a large pool of candidates available. In many ways the £250 p/d level is harder than the £350+ level.

[gingerjedi]

Correct....

As long as there are end users, there will always be a need for infrastructure support. At the end of the day, infrastructure allows an employee to perform their job.

Whether it's kept in-house or outsourced is another story.

That is very true and there are still jobs out there it's just that the technical stuff is centralised and what used to be a genuine support role is nothing more than a PC portering and a bit of patching these days.

ITIL has destroyed the fun of fixing things.

[rootsnall]

If SAP dies as well, then abandon ship, all hope is lost ! It has been the case for some time now that certain areas of IT have run the full life-cycle and died off e.g. support, Lotus Notes, numerous dev software packages etc. Alongside that, people have had a few years in the sun when they were all the rage, especially contractors who tend to specialise. When the wind shifts you can easily find all your skills are worth nothing ! This isn't a profession, it's like being in a horse race and trying to change mounts half way through the race because yours is dying ! If you are in the sun, you need to get the next 5 years planned (it's not just a dodgy interview question), if your hoss is already toast, start praying, then start planning !

SAP itself is still going strong(ish), it's the recession now, and offshoring and ICTs now and longer term that are making things grim at a contractor level. A smaller more obscure skill may actually be better for long term survival as there isn't the same incentive for offshore resources to get skilled up. I've changed mounts a few times but I don't see an obvious techie skill to learn at the moment and have doubts about any of the broader skills paying big bucks longer term. Moving higher up the food chain is probably the answer but we can't all do that, and the higher end stuff is headed offshore sooner rather than later.

[wizzfizz09]

When you say 3rd line support - what kind of support is it? Is it Networking (ie routers/firewalls/VOIP), infrastructure (windows/sql/exchange), desktop, applications?

Personally I'm doing the networking side of things, and it doesn't seem totally dead to me, i'm in contract and have a couple of permanent interviews lined up (no contracts in the North East, but there never seemed to be many).

I've checked the stats on IT jobs watch just to make sure it's not just what i do going down the toilet, and it seems that most roles advertised are down by 2/3 on what they were in 2008, except banking stuff.

Correct....

As long as there are end users, there will always be a need for infrastructure support. At the end of the day, infrastructure allows an employee to perform their job.

Whether it's kept in-house or outsourced is another story.

[the_duderama]

When you say 3rd line support - what kind of support is it? Is it Networking (ie routers/firewalls/VOIP), infrastructure (windows/sql/exchange), desktop, applications?

Personally I'm doing the networking side of things, and it doesn't seem totally dead to me, i'm in contract and have a couple of permanent interviews lined up (no contracts in the North East, but there never seemed to be many).

I've checked the stats on IT jobs watch just to make sure it's not just what i do going down the toilet, and it seems that most roles advertised are down by 2/3 on what they were in 2008, except banking stuff.

[lukemg]

If SAP dies as well, then abandon ship, all hope is lost ! It has been the case for some time now that certain areas of IT have run the full life-cycle and died off e.g. support, Lotus Notes, numerous dev software packages etc. Alongside that, people have had a few years in the sun when they were all the rage, especially contractors who tend to specialise. When the wind shifts you can easily find all your skills are worth nothing ! This isn't a profession, it's like being in a horse race and trying to change mounts half way through the race because yours is dying ! If you are in the sun, you need to get the next 5 years planned (it's not just a dodgy interview question), if your hoss is already toast, start praying, then start planning !

[rootsnall]

Your answer makes me sad ......

It makes me sad ! I always said I was looking forward to the day when it wasn't worth my while doing this tulip anymore as it would force me to do something else. I'm not so sure now after 15 years of easy ( and good most of the time ) money. I think things will bounce back to some extent if we emerge from this recession but the outsourcing/Indian factor means it'll never be as lucrative again.