IT job requirements help

[SLK55AMG]

My stepson who is 30 works at a local Sainsburys and is frankly bored and fed up. He did ok at school and went to college for a couple of years after. He would love a job in IT however has no IT qualifications.
Can I ask would anybody have any experience of how to break into the IT market successfully, obviously there are courses that can be taken however he does currently work full-time so it would have to possibly be an online type course.
The problem is with him working full-time on a reasonable wage is he couldn’t take a pay drop to go into a starter IT job as he has a mortgage and bills to pay and a car to run. So a couple of questions.
What would be the required minimum qualification to get a job pay a reasonable wage.
What sort of realistic wage could he get and how long would the appropriate IT course take and the cost. If anybody has any knowledge on this subject it’ll be much appreciated thanks

[randlemarcus]

What's his current salary range, as that will help with achievability. And which bit of the broad church that is IT does he fancy?

[bitchstewie]

I'd also ask what's his IT knowledge like?

I've sat in on interviews where it's clear the person who supposedly has ten years (or whatever) experience and a bunch of certs doesn't seem to know basic entry level help desk stuff whilst the person who's been a geek since they were a kid but doesn't have any experience or certs but is nosey and keen to learn is the much better candidate.

Find the right company and the lack of experience and certs shouldn't be a big deal.

[CzechItOut]

Most companies offer programmes for school leavers, graduates and career changers. I was involved in the Technical Development Programme at Nationwide, aimed at people with work experience, but not in IT. Start salary was £28.5k.

https://www.nationwide-jobs.co.uk/early-careers/te...

[Ashfordian]

Have a look here under the digital section of your region - https://www.gov.uk/guidance/find-a-skills-bootcamp

It helps by showing a lot of the areas of IT and these can be investigated further as to what they entail and see what he feels will fit him best. e.g. Some people find software development very dry while for others they enjoy it so much it is like being paid for doing their hobby.

Unfortunately he is very likely to have to take a drop in salary in the first year of two as experience is what pays. However after this time if he has spent the time expanding his knowledge and gaining experience he can quickly climb the ladder.

Be aware that most IT roles are now very corporate and will not be any different to the corporate stuff he currently has to deal with working at Sainsburys.

[Baldchap]

If he's got people skills and can do the technical side, then he'll actually be in a very small pool of people.

Starting out I'd say he probably should do COMPTIA A+, which is an easy enough, entry-level certification that should enable him to get into a tech support role ahead of most applicants, from there he can decide what direction he wants to go in, be it development, sysadmin stuff, compliance, etc.

In my experience, he'll learn far more in a small company than a large corporate, though YMMV.

[SLK55AMG]

randlemarcus said:

What's his current salary range, as that will help with achievability. And which bit of the broad church that is IT does he fancy?

He is at around £22k and managing fine but can’t realistically take a drop

[SLK55AMG]

Baldchap said:

If he's got people skills and can do the technical side, then he'll actually be in a very small pool of people.

Starting out I'd say he probably should do COMPTIA A+, which is an easy enough, entry-level certification that should enable him to get into a tech support role ahead of most applicants, from there he can decide what direction he wants to go in, be it development, sysadmin stuff, compliance, etc.

In my experience, he'll learn far more in a small company than a large corporate, though YMMV.

Thanks for that, is what you mean as per below. If so I’ll get him to look a bit further into it and see if it’s the sort of thing for him

[mnaylor]

If he did a boot camp in coding he could probably get his foot in the door somewhere. My company have taken people from here before:

https://makers.tech/software-developer-bootcamp/

We would give people a starting salary of somewhere between 35k and 40k on this basis. London based but mainly wfh.

[SLK55AMG]

mnaylor said:

If he did a boot camp in coding he could probably get his foot in the door somewhere. My company have taken people from here before:

https://makers.tech/software-developer-bootcamp/

We would give people a starting salary of somewhere between 35k and 40k on this basis. London based but mainly wfh.

Thanks, he is based in Nottingham

[SLK55AMG]

mnaylor said:

If he did a boot camp in coding he could probably get his foot in the door somewhere. My company have taken people from here before:

https://makers.tech/software-developer-bootcamp/

We would give people a starting salary of somewhere between 35k and 40k on this basis. London based but mainly wfh.

Would you have any idea what that course might cost?

[mnaylor]

SLK55AMG said:

Thanks, he is based in Nottingham

Doesn't matter much these days. Since Covid we have put location to the side. However, there are probably plenty of jobs in Nottingham anyway.

[mnaylor]

SLK55AMG said:

Would you have any idea what that course might cost?

No not sure, a few grand I suspect, but it has a very good chance of getting you a job at the end. There is a shortage of developers, recruiting has been so tough over the last couple of years.

[randlemarcus]

Please dont go anywhere near paid for courses until he has a bit of an idea about which bit of IT suits him. I can't code for toffee, couldn't at University, can't now *except line by line copy and paste* Throwing away 650 wouldn't be good for me, might not be for him. If he has life experience beyond stacking shelves, maybe a business analyst role. If he has excellent organisational skills, maybe project management. Point is to find something he's happy doing, rather than aim at the salary because the rest of his career will be filled with new things, and learning and he might as well enjoy it

I had a brainwave, and looked at the BCS webpage to see if there was anything helpful. But there isn't disappointingly.

[mnaylor]

randlemarcus said:

Please dont go anywhere near paid for courses until he has a bit of an idea about which bit of IT suits him. I can't code for toffee, couldn't at University, can't now *except line by line copy and paste* Throwing away 650 wouldn't be good for me, might not be for him. If he has life experience beyond stacking shelves, maybe a business analyst role. If he has excellent organisational skills, maybe project management. Point is to find something he's happy doing, rather than aim at the salary because the rest of his career will be filled with new things, and learning and he might as well enjoy it

I had a brainwave, and looked at the BCS webpage to see if there was anything helpful. But there isn't disappointingly.

Very good point. When the OP said IT I immediately assumed coder/developer but of course there are loads of roles in the field.

[SLK55AMG]

mnaylor said:

randlemarcus said:

Please dont go anywhere near paid for courses until he has a bit of an idea about which bit of IT suits him. I can't code for toffee, couldn't at University, can't now *except line by line copy and paste* Throwing away 650 wouldn't be good for me, might not be for him. If he has life experience beyond stacking shelves, maybe a business analyst role. If he has excellent organisational skills, maybe project management. Point is to find something he's happy doing, rather than aim at the salary because the rest of his career will be filled with new things, and learning and he might as well enjoy it

I had a brainwave, and looked at the BCS webpage to see if there was anything helpful. But there isn't disappointingly.

Very good point. When the OP said IT I immediately assumed coder/developer but of course there are loads of roles in the field.

I don’t think he sees himself coding, more pc upgrades, fault finding, testing, repairing etc.

Not sure if there is any recognised qualification in that area at all.

[bitchstewie]

SLK55AMG said:

I don’t think he sees himself coding, more pc upgrades, fault finding, testing, repairing etc.

Not sure if there is any recognised qualification in that area at all.

I'd say there are broadly two elements to that (I'm simplifying massively).

There's the generic bit i.e. if his mates or family ask him to look at a broken PC does he already have any of that skillset?

There's the corporate bit that tends to apply more in a business setting (domains, TCP/IP, stuff that probably means nothing to normal people ).

There are plenty of qualifications in both but equally someone who's nosey and keen and eager should be able to make a good enough impression to get a foot on the ladder IMO.

[SLK55AMG]

bhstewie said:

SLK55AMG said:

I don’t think he sees himself coding, more pc upgrades, fault finding, testing, repairing etc.

Not sure if there is any recognised qualification in that area at all.

I'd say there are broadly two elements to that (I'm simplifying massively).

There's the generic bit i.e. if his mates or family ask him to look at a broken PC does he already have any of that skillset?

There's the corporate bit that tends to apply more in a business setting (domains, TCP/IP, stuff that probably means nothing to normal people ).

There are plenty of qualifications in both but equally someone who's nosey and keen and eager should be able to make a good enough impression to get a foot on the ladder IMO.

Reference to the required qualifications, is there a particular foundation type qualification that everyone should have to get in the door ?

[SpamDisco]

NCR look after Sainsbury's IT/Epos, he probably already has experience of performing first line maintenance for the help desk. They are recruiting and will train people up, just search for "NCR Customer Engineer".

Comptia A+ is probably the only recognised basic pc hardware certificate, but not sure if that many people have it.

[SLK55AMG]

SpamDisco said:

NCR look after Sainsbury's IT/Epos, he probably already has experience of performing first line maintenance for the help desk. They are recruiting and will train people up, just search for "NCR Customer Engineer".

Comptia A+ is probably the only recognised basic pc hardware certificate, but not sure if that many people have it.

His current role at Sainsburys is nothing to do with IT.