A career in IT programming
Discussion
Hi all, my son is approaching 6th form and having enjoyed the programming part of GCSE Computer Science has a wish to enter a career in programming.
At A Level he has chosen Computer Science, but having looked into Apprenticeships at 18, they all seem to require A Level ICT (which his school does not offer). I do not know what the A Level ICT and A Level CS differences are, but if ICT is more programming than theory, I think he'd enjoy that more. I also see there is an A Level 'Computing', again his school does not offer this.
It's unlikely he'll go to university, so an apprenticeship at 18 seems most likely.
He has done a BTEC level 2 in Digital IT, and they do offer a Cambridge Technical level 3 in Technical IT (they say it's the same?) but from his GCSE work this seems more like dealing with excel and powerpoint to create dashboards etc. so not sure he's going to enjoy that.
Does anyone have any experience in this field that wouldn't mind a PM to ask some more specific questions.
Thanks in advance.
At A Level he has chosen Computer Science, but having looked into Apprenticeships at 18, they all seem to require A Level ICT (which his school does not offer). I do not know what the A Level ICT and A Level CS differences are, but if ICT is more programming than theory, I think he'd enjoy that more. I also see there is an A Level 'Computing', again his school does not offer this.
It's unlikely he'll go to university, so an apprenticeship at 18 seems most likely.
He has done a BTEC level 2 in Digital IT, and they do offer a Cambridge Technical level 3 in Technical IT (they say it's the same?) but from his GCSE work this seems more like dealing with excel and powerpoint to create dashboards etc. so not sure he's going to enjoy that.
Does anyone have any experience in this field that wouldn't mind a PM to ask some more specific questions.
Thanks in advance.
Edited by audi321 on Wednesday 21st February 19:17
I don't have any direct experience with those courses, but a CS A level will be more oriented to software development than ICT. ICT is more about IT applied to business.
The typical route into a software development career is via a University CS course. Or these days, it's probably possible to do it by getting known from doing open source work, but that's not going to pay anything.
The typical route into a software development career is via a University CS course. Or these days, it's probably possible to do it by getting known from doing open source work, but that's not going to pay anything.
Software development/engineering/programming generally is a world apart from IT. so there wont be much value in general IT/ICT type courses.
as above poster. The most typical route is a degree in either CS or software development/engineering. Also find a lot of cross over with logic heavy degrees such as various genres of engineering as well as maths etc.
there has been a introduction in recent years from big companies to offer more apprenticeships but even most of these will be in placement with completing a degree while working and generally reserved to larger employers and pretty competitive.
Most jobs in programming will usually be looking a degree in one of the previous mentioned fields. Thats not to say its impossible to forge a career without one I think realistically its gonna make life a lot tougher. Its already became a fairly competitive field and has been quite volatile to market forces in recent years. (Recently there was a hiring splurge during covid followed by many lay offs and hiring freezes which continue at the current moment in time).
A lot of applications will be screened these days and if a relevant degree isnt there its unlikely you would get a chance to put across your skills regardless of how good you are and there are a lot of good devs out there without degrees. I certainly use very little of what i learned in uni. Surprisingly there isnt really a need to subtract a hexadecimal from another in the real world.
I dont want to dissuade your son from doing whatever his plans may be and there will always be a way if your willing to put the effort in and be persistent but going down the non-degree route is a tough one. I work at a large international company with a big software dev presence in the UK, Ive yet to meet any colleagues without a degree.
One alternative which i will preface i dont have any first hand experience of is: Code boot camps. Basically accelerated programming courses from various providers. basically they strip away all the fluff universities add to make up the 3/4 year degrees into 3/6 month courses focussed on the actual stuff you would use in the real world.
From what I have heard there are good and bad providers and research should be done before handing over any money but Im aware some have came out of these into decent jobs although at some point in your career you may still face the "software siv" of any job application.
a good place to look/ask for others experiences would be:
https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestionsuk/
https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestionsEU/
as above poster. The most typical route is a degree in either CS or software development/engineering. Also find a lot of cross over with logic heavy degrees such as various genres of engineering as well as maths etc.
there has been a introduction in recent years from big companies to offer more apprenticeships but even most of these will be in placement with completing a degree while working and generally reserved to larger employers and pretty competitive.
Most jobs in programming will usually be looking a degree in one of the previous mentioned fields. Thats not to say its impossible to forge a career without one I think realistically its gonna make life a lot tougher. Its already became a fairly competitive field and has been quite volatile to market forces in recent years. (Recently there was a hiring splurge during covid followed by many lay offs and hiring freezes which continue at the current moment in time).
A lot of applications will be screened these days and if a relevant degree isnt there its unlikely you would get a chance to put across your skills regardless of how good you are and there are a lot of good devs out there without degrees. I certainly use very little of what i learned in uni. Surprisingly there isnt really a need to subtract a hexadecimal from another in the real world.
I dont want to dissuade your son from doing whatever his plans may be and there will always be a way if your willing to put the effort in and be persistent but going down the non-degree route is a tough one. I work at a large international company with a big software dev presence in the UK, Ive yet to meet any colleagues without a degree.
One alternative which i will preface i dont have any first hand experience of is: Code boot camps. Basically accelerated programming courses from various providers. basically they strip away all the fluff universities add to make up the 3/4 year degrees into 3/6 month courses focussed on the actual stuff you would use in the real world.
From what I have heard there are good and bad providers and research should be done before handing over any money but Im aware some have came out of these into decent jobs although at some point in your career you may still face the "software siv" of any job application.
a good place to look/ask for others experiences would be:
https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestionsuk/
https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestionsEU/
Edited by PaulWoof on Wednesday 21st February 20:49
Computer Science A-Level will be perfect but I'd expect the programming level required to be quite low.
Lots of study material available online and creating his own GitHub repository and getting some experience in maybe working on a few Open Source projects will make his apprenticeship application stand out.
Lots of study material available online and creating his own GitHub repository and getting some experience in maybe working on a few Open Source projects will make his apprenticeship application stand out.
Check the Degree Apprenticeships. There will be some good ones, IBM, Microsoft, Cap Gemini etc.. Sounds like he should aim for those with the higher requirements.
Ideally the school should have discussed these with you. You can sign up for the various degree apprenticeships. Of course they don't tend to align with the deadlines and dates that UCAS has. So you need to be a bit more organised in order to know about the deadlines for these and they can be relatively ad hoc in terms of the deadlines as well.
What apprenticeships have you looked at. There will be different ones, with different entry criteria. The ones you mention sound like ICT as opposed to software development ones.
Ideally the school should have discussed these with you. You can sign up for the various degree apprenticeships. Of course they don't tend to align with the deadlines and dates that UCAS has. So you need to be a bit more organised in order to know about the deadlines for these and they can be relatively ad hoc in terms of the deadlines as well.
What apprenticeships have you looked at. There will be different ones, with different entry criteria. The ones you mention sound like ICT as opposed to software development ones.
Edited by eps on Wednesday 21st February 21:44
In my later-career years of IT, the best coder/programmer I knew had a 1:1 in Mathematics. He could easily 'drop into' anything from COBOL/Fortran/VBasic/C/C++ at the drop of a hat.
The second-best coder/programmer I knew had a 2:2 in History. He could write Motorola machine-code in his sleep.
How's that work, then?
The second-best coder/programmer I knew had a 2:2 in History. He could write Motorola machine-code in his sleep.
How's that work, then?
Speaking as someone who entered a long and successful IT career without a degree and whose educational background was not in technology
In my last few companies I’ve overseen the hiring of hundreds of software engineers, mainly programmers. We would always look for a degree in computer science, especially for junior intake. I’m not saying that your son can’t get employed as a programmer without the CS degree, but it will certainly be much harder
This isn’t necessarily a good thing, but it’s how it is
In my last few companies I’ve overseen the hiring of hundreds of software engineers, mainly programmers. We would always look for a degree in computer science, especially for junior intake. I’m not saying that your son can’t get employed as a programmer without the CS degree, but it will certainly be much harder
This isn’t necessarily a good thing, but it’s how it is
I work for a company mentioned above who does degree apprenticeships. These are excellent programmes and the people we have on them are all uniformly excellent.
However, for programming in particular bear in mind which way the technology is going. Over the next five years or so, the rise of ‘AI’ in use for coding is only going to increase so I’d encourage anyone thinking about a career to not solely focus on programming but look at the skills surrounding that as well. Working with customers, analysis, design, architecture etc. The skills that aren’t quite so easily replaced by machine learning or off-shored.
However, for programming in particular bear in mind which way the technology is going. Over the next five years or so, the rise of ‘AI’ in use for coding is only going to increase so I’d encourage anyone thinking about a career to not solely focus on programming but look at the skills surrounding that as well. Working with customers, analysis, design, architecture etc. The skills that aren’t quite so easily replaced by machine learning or off-shored.
It should be perfectly possible to get into software engineering without a degree, hard but possible.
You are relying on finding a forward looking company / recruiter who can see the potential in the candidate and then a candidate that can demonstrate the aptitude without having the academic backup.
If you can convince the recruiter then you just need to demonstrate to the employer that you are good enough. You would almost certainly be doing some kind of tech test and then technical interviews. Once you get here the degree is irrelevant.
So they will need a kind of portfolio of work such that they demonstrate problems solving and an ability to talk around the kinds of technologies and issues an organisation might face.
For a smart kid this should be doable, I know a few who don’t have the qualifications and have had very good careers.
I think the trouble is finding a forward thinking employer.
You are relying on finding a forward looking company / recruiter who can see the potential in the candidate and then a candidate that can demonstrate the aptitude without having the academic backup.
If you can convince the recruiter then you just need to demonstrate to the employer that you are good enough. You would almost certainly be doing some kind of tech test and then technical interviews. Once you get here the degree is irrelevant.
So they will need a kind of portfolio of work such that they demonstrate problems solving and an ability to talk around the kinds of technologies and issues an organisation might face.
For a smart kid this should be doable, I know a few who don’t have the qualifications and have had very good careers.
I think the trouble is finding a forward thinking employer.
I'm a self-taught software developer - mostly front-end these days but did do back-end and full-stack in the past.
There's lots of opportunities and bootcamps which'll get you to a junior level for web development. However things are tough at the moment for this sort of work; when interest rates are low there's a lot of people throwing s
t at the wall to see what sticks and right now that's not happening. Everything seems to be having budgets cut and work is getting outsourced all over the place. Thought I doubt this'll be the case forever.
It looks like the field of data science is taking more and more prominence. I think that's something that requires an education and can't be picked up in a bootcamp. A lot of these roles require a degree or relevant industry experience.
There's lots of opportunities and bootcamps which'll get you to a junior level for web development. However things are tough at the moment for this sort of work; when interest rates are low there's a lot of people throwing s
t at the wall to see what sticks and right now that's not happening. Everything seems to be having budgets cut and work is getting outsourced all over the place. Thought I doubt this'll be the case forever.It looks like the field of data science is taking more and more prominence. I think that's something that requires an education and can't be picked up in a bootcamp. A lot of these roles require a degree or relevant industry experience.
Thanks very much guys, I think he's definitely set on being a programmer in some way. CS is the A Level then, and hopefully if he does well, then a degree apprenticeship might be possible in 2 years - although I bet there is fierce competition for them!
AI does concern me though. I mean I could ask CHATGPT to write me code in seconds for almost anything............where's it going in 5-10 years.......
AI does concern me though. I mean I could ask CHATGPT to write me code in seconds for almost anything............where's it going in 5-10 years.......
audi321 said:
AI does concern me though. I mean I could ask CHATGPT to write me code in seconds for almost anything............where's it going in 5-10 years.......
you can - but it will often not work 
I might have to re-try but when I asked ChatGPT as a test to write code for PHP to connect to Dropbox via OAuth (not hugely complex) it was riddled with issues and definitely didn't work...
regarding his training - a lot depends on what type of business he wants to join - an Apprenticeship and a large company v. a degree and a large company v. a smaller company - demonstrating some independent interest and involvement in coding would also be good - I get asked to provide work experience to late teens and have people contacting ref. work - if they are not already developing apps or websites or similar then I wouldn't look at them - I have 35+ years in IT with no formal qualifications - the big differentiator is the type of brain, someone inquisitive who can learn from doing / examples / etc. and who is already using the tools to provide solutions - I would have very little interest in a degree without that as an academic interest in coding usually translates into a non-flexible coder who is hidebound to one way of working... so as well as the good advice above, encourage playing and doing...
audi321 said:
AI does concern me though. I mean I could ask CHATGPT to write me code in seconds for almost anything............where's it going in 5-10 years.......
I've been writing s/w for 35+ years, and things have changed in that time - I don't think it's chatGPT you need to worry about.These days, pretty much every company who develops software will have offices in India, China etc. Because they are cheap.
I believe this has a significant effect on UK salaries (and job security) - too many bean counters look at the cost of UK employees and conclude that they could have multiple people elsewhere for the same cost. And even if you have UK offices, well - plenty of Indian engineers are more than happy to come and work in the UK on a visa for less money.
There are areas of software where that is less true (e.g. anything defence related).
I've enjoyed (most) of my career in software. I'm not sure it's a career I'd choose now though.
Edited by davek_964 on Thursday 22 February 13:07
davek_964 said:
These days, pretty much every company who develops software will have offices in India, China etc. Because they are cheap.
Bad example. Software engineer salaries in China are not far behind the UK and higher than most of Western Europe. Companies develop in China for the China market, which has many peculiarities that are not easily addressed from outside Greater ChinaIf you'd said India, Vietnam, Philippines, etc you'd have been spot on
Straightforward web, database, mobile development is increasingly commoditised and I believe the number of well-paying roles in the UK will continue to decline. The growth area is data engineering, generative AI, ML for which a CS degree is a good starting point
mikef said:
davek_964 said:
These days, pretty much every company who develops software will have offices in India, China etc. Because they are cheap.
Bad example. Software engineer salaries in China are not far behind the UK and higher than most of Western Europe. Companies develop in China for the China market, which has many peculiarities that are not easily addressed from outside Greater ChinaIf you'd said India, Vietnam, Philippines, etc you'd have been spot on
Straightforward web, database, mobile development is increasingly commoditised and I believe the number of well-paying roles in the UK will continue to decline. The growth area is data engineering, generative AI, ML for which a CS degree is a good starting point
But anyway - the main point I was making remains.
I’d be looking at job specs for the leading businesses and seeing what they want from people. Nvidia, Databricks, Snowflake mongoDB, some to consider in the cloud space. I’m sure finance space you could do the same - Citadel etc.
We hire loads of such people, most have a comp science degree it would seem.
We hire loads of such people, most have a comp science degree it would seem.
davek_964 said:
mikef said:
davek_964 said:
These days, pretty much every company who develops software will have offices in India, China etc. Because they are cheap.
Bad example. Software engineer salaries in China are not far behind the UK and higher than most of Western Europe. Companies develop in China for the China market, which has many peculiarities that are not easily addressed from outside Greater ChinaIf you'd said India, Vietnam, Philippines, etc you'd have been spot on
Straightforward web, database, mobile development is increasingly commoditised and I believe the number of well-paying roles in the UK will continue to decline. The growth area is data engineering, generative AI, ML for which a CS degree is a good starting point
But anyway - the main point I was making remains.
FInd a more specialist industry, it's way more secure and a hell of a lot more interesting.
supersport said:
A lot of what I have seen come out of those spaces has been utter crap, and to my mind very short sighted.
FInd a more specialist industry, it's way more secure and a hell of a lot more interesting.
I worked with off-shore teams and it's a mixed bag.FInd a more specialist industry, it's way more secure and a hell of a lot more interesting.
Generally, those from India have a "get it done by any means" attitude which while on the surface sounds good... it often leads to code that is not very readable or flexible long term.
The programmers I worked with from the Philippines were phenomenal - loved their craft and it showed in their work.
The difference was stark between the two.
What I've noticed happening now are roles where a western mid/senior dev will join a squad of offshore developers. The Western dev is the secret linchpin expected to hold everything together.. the go-to person in the business. Obviously, the role will never be sold like that, but one only has to "look" to see it.
If he does CS A Level then the course specs nowadays seem ok - not seen any mention of magnetic core memory though which is a shame.
IMO he would benefit if you were able to stump up for a boot camp on specific tech either post or during A level - demonstrates he actually does want a career!
Then bombard smaller companies with his details begging for an apprenticeship.
Companies with annual big intakes will all be after degree level - not that it means much tbh.
IMO he would benefit if you were able to stump up for a boot camp on specific tech either post or during A level - demonstrates he actually does want a career!
Then bombard smaller companies with his details begging for an apprenticeship.
Companies with annual big intakes will all be after degree level - not that it means much tbh.
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