The Little Careers Book

NOTES ࢚࢚ While many IT professionals work in IT firms and consultancies, there are lots of jobs in large companies as well as in central and local government. ࢚࢚ IT occupations vary from those that favour very deep technical knowledge to those that favour excellent management skills. ࢚࢚ The range of IT roles is vast and varied, including hardware/software engineers, network architects/systems managers, solution designers, project managers, database administrators, security analysts, and service support specialists. ࢚࢚ There is always an opportunity to learn new things and move area of expertise. ࢚࢚ Most interestingly, IT roles exist in almost every industry (retail, finance, pharmaceuticals, media, human resources, manufacturing, marketing, even some sports), so you can work in any industry that interests you… and move amongst them, too. ࢚࢚ Large organisations rarely employ lots of programmers, as programming is increasingly being outsourced to companies in parts of the world where labour is cheaper. ࢚࢚ Most IT people have to be a “jack of all trades” while others choose to specialise in development, project management or system analysis. ࢚࢚ There are loads of roles in IT Infrastructure (including servers, networks, and desktops), as well as in applications, business process outsourcing, etc. ࢚࢚ Cybersecurity covers a huge range of roles, from investigating the sources of hacking attacks through to designing secure systems and attempting to hack into systems to identify weaknesses. This is a major growth area for IT. ࢚࢚ For those with an entrepreneurial spirit, opportunities for technology start-up businesses are tremendous (AI, big data, cloud, block chain) and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. TRUTHS XX Writing code and developing software is by far the most important skill to have for a career in IT. MYTHS RANGE OF OCCUPATIONS