Careers in IT

Emma-Louise The information technology, or IT sector as it's commonly known, is an industry that continues to thrive as we live in an ever-developing digital world.

Frankie IT is a skill set that's needed for most jobs and, in fact, needed for a lot of everyday tasks. For instance, you probably would have applied those IT skills to watch this video.

Emma-Louise But IT is also a whole job sector and that's what we're looking at here. As of 2020, the IT sector itself directly employed just over 900,000 people and this is set to continue to rise with a projected increase of 46,000 new jobs by 2025.

Frankie The sector encompasses many subsectors, including telecommunication, information management, and cyber security, to name a few.

Emma-Louise A lot of IT job roles can be found across these subsectors. For example, programmers, software developers, and IT managers.

Frankie Programmers and software developers made up nearly 18% of the IT sector as of 2020. These are people who design, build and test software or applications for all industries, and this can include video games. In 2020, the role had a median salary of just over £48,000.

Emma-Louise IT managers oversee the development and installation of computer systems. This could be a learning portal for a school or college or installation of a whole new system for a hospital. Sounds like a lot of responsibility and it is, which is why they had a median pay of just below £55,000 in 2020. Web designers and developers, as the name suggests, design and build websites and online applications. The median salary was around £34,000 in 2020 and, by 2025, there are projected to be around 1,200 more jobs available. That is 6% more than in 2020.

Frankie As technology and our digital demands change and evolve, new types of IT roles are created, so you could be doing a role in the future that we don't even know about yet.

Emma-Louise The great thing about IT is that many of us have tools to learn and develop our skills right at our fingertips. If you have access to a smartphone, tablet or laptop, there are lots of apps and software on hand to help you boost your digital skills.

Frankie Career paths into the IT sector can vary a great deal. Some roles you'll need to have specialist skills and qualifications before you start and others you can learn and gain experience within the role.

Emma-Louise Generally speaking, there are university courses, college courses, apprenticeship programmes, and graduate training schemes, as well as working your way up straight out of education.

Frankie Roles like programmers, software developers, web designers and developers have similar pathways and also reflect some common roots into the IT sector.

Emma-Louise You could go down the university route studying a course such as Computer Science, Information Technology, or Financial Technology. If you know which area you're interested in, you could pick a specialised course such as Web Design and Development if you want to be a web developer, or Software Engineering for Business, if you'd like to be a software developer. You'll need one or two A-levels or equivalent for a foundation degree or Higher National Diploma and two to three A-levels or equivalent for a degree.

Frankie College courses are another option and include courses like an A-level in Computing or Level 3 certificate in Programming, as well as the new T-levels available in England in Digital Production, Design and Development; Digital Business Services; and Digital Support Services.

Emma-Louise Apprenticeships and entry level jobs also offer a direct route into the IT workplace. For example, level 2 apprenticeships can be accessed without any formal qualifications in some cases, or with two or more GCSEs or equivalent. Or a job as an IT support trainee can be applied for directly if you've got a good grounding in IT skills. You could then do qualifications while you work in order to progress.

Frankie Due to the wide range of different options available, the qualifications you'll need will differ, but checking out the government careers service website in your nation is a great place to start your research. Let's get some more insight from people working in the IT sector. Buki is a systems engineer for a law enforcement consultancy. "My route into a career in tech was not conventional, but it reflects who and what I am. I studied Psychology at university and I was an artist who was also passionate about music. I initially learnt coding whilst playing around with the layout of my old social media sites. I didn't know I was coding, but I loved creating something from the lines of code."

Emma-Louise Annette is an expert in the sector from The Chartered Institute for IT. "Digital Skills are in all jobs, not just IT roles; you need to be tech-savvy to work in science, engineering, media, marketing, banking, retail, hospitality, health, manufacturing or logistics – in fact, most occupations these days. Building up computing and digital skills can get you jobs in exciting sectors such as gaming, cybersecurity or artificial intelligence too."

Emma-Louise In the year from June 2020 to May 2021, just under a million jobs were advertised for IT occupations. That means roles that use IT, both within the IT sector and in other sectors. One of the skills most commonly mentioned was agile methodology.

Frankie That's a type of project management process, which is often used for software development and it involves strong planning and organisational skills. So, if that sounds like you, then you might want to consider a role in IT. Many job listings also asked for skills in specific programming languages too, such as JavaScript and SQL, so it would be worth looking out for opportunities to learn these, for example on any courses you're interested in.

With the digital age that we've entered into, there are a world of opportunities. You may even be more technically-minded than you thought. So, if you're curious, don't be intimidated – get researching. Starting your journey to enrol in IT could be just a few clicks away.