Any IT tech's here?

[Tattiespuds]

Not an AIBU more for traffic.

I'm currently mostly a SAHM and looking for a new career path. I've always been somewhat interested in IT although barely touched a PC in a few years since having DC.
I've found a course that qualifies me as a IT Technician, but trying to work out if I can juggle the hours around kids/future

So if your an IT can you tell me:
What is your typical days/hrs?
Is there much room for pay progression?
Is it very male dominated workplace?
Do you enjoy it?

Thanks

I'm a software developer. Do you mean that, as in coding/web development etc, or IT as in helping people use their systems, support type role?

@Sirinn the course I've looked at is more support based.

I'd love to get into software development but I don't have the smarts for that 🙃

For web development, which I might add can be great for a career change as there are a number of bootcamps and training courses for learning to code enough for a junior position:

1. 37.5 hrs, very flexible and we've had WFH for years.
2. Very much, the pay an be astronomical. £550+ a day for freelancers, when you're at the top of your game, and more if you specialise. £120k salaries in London, I hear, perhaps a bit less up North. The market is always on the lookout for more devs.
3. It's getting better.
4. Love it. Creative, fun, challenging, stimulating and wonderful seeing your work launch and go out to clients.

I enjoy it. It is a male dominated area, but honestly I've not really noticed any difference between me and them. I do it security too, which you could easily get into too. There's big scope for pay increases and progression, you may need to work for a while in a crappier company and then move on to a better one once you've got experience.

[quote Tattiespuds]@Sirinn the course I've looked at is more support based.

I'd love to get into software development but I don't have the smarts for that 🙃[/quote]
Ah, don't say that. Anything can be learned. I was a SAHM too. Saw a 'learn to code' course and the rest is history.

Oh I work 35 hours but it's literally between 7-7. I can work whenever I want really, just need to keep my manager in the loop about it.

The problem with IT is its an absolutely massive range of roles.

So I work in a weird job, where I effectively help people migrate their systems temporarily to a new platform so they can see how wonderful it is, and hopefully by it. This is basically selling the big behind the scenes type IT, e.g. for billing and banking systems.

Typical day - Mon to Fri, officially 9 to 5, in reality, can be called anytime between 6am and 8pm (though most people understand that anything after 5pm is wine o clock so god help them if they want me to do something fiddly as root)

My pay has pretty much stalled - there was a big uplift in salaries pre-Y2K and since then the raises have been very very gradual. The only way to really get a decent payrise is to grade up, and it is very competititve.

Yeah, male dominated environment for sure. In my group there are 4 women out of 20 people, but 2 of these are 'admin' type roles. If you expand it out to the entire international group it's way worse, out of 90+ people there's 6 women.

Enjoy is a bit strong. I don't hate it for sure, and there is some satisfaction to be had in getting something tricky done. Though I could do without waking up at 2am with cold sweats and anxiety that I'm fucking up a massive multi-million pound deal because I'm not making it go fast enough.

What course is it? Before spending time and money on it, I would google some IT techinician jobs and see what qualifications they are actually requiring because there are a lot of courses that promise you things that turn out to be utterly worthless in the actual job market.

Development is way more creative than people give it credit for. I think of it as a kind of sculpture, working iteratively to build the final product. A lot of it feels like doing puzzles all day which is what I love about it (male software developer).

Maybe have a closer look first - any chance you could do a bootcamp or trial course as someone above suggested ?

Development is quite male dominated still, I made a point of telling our recruiter to not send me any more men before she sent me some women candidates, for development roles. The women we recruited in dev were all excellent at the job, superb team members and had a great influence on the overall dynamic of the company.

I often feel a bit sorry for support staff as they take a lot of user flack, and will see the same situations unfold over and over again. Usually involving printers, or forgotten passwords !

I'll be honest - I don't think working a support desk requires a training course in IT skills so I would probably swerve paying for a course on that unless it was really accredited. People skills are much more useful, because you have to have the patience of a saint to deal with your customers.

Post graduation I got a job at Sage on their support desk. I SUCKED because while I could fix the problems, I just had no patience with people and couldn't mask this (Apparently I had very belittling sigh). At the time Sage would take people on without direct IT qualifications because of this.

Unix/storage sys admin. 40h week, but also on-call (1 week in 7, get extra pay for it,) and out of hours maintenances (can usually claim TOIL, occasionally OT.) Nominally 9-5:30, but very flexible (because of sometimes having to do out of hours. As long as manager can contact me and I am at meet, he does really care where I work, or when - I've got a couple of medical appointments coming up, and I just work round it (there are middle of the day.)

How interesting work is can depend on which projects are in progress, but there's usually something in between the duller bits.

It is male-dominated in my area I'm the only woman in a dept of about 25. Most of them are fine, though. I work for an big multinational and I love that every day, I speak to people all over the world. (That bit is more about the type of company than tech in particular, to be fair.)

I'd love to get into software development but I don't have the smarts for that

It's hard to express, but good software development is more creative and less book learning than you'd think. I see it more as being able to solve puzzles using an different language, and being able to see an efficient path through things. Definitely not a more IQ=better situation at all. (I suck at development, if you want something longer than 2 sheets of A4 in something other than bash, and I'm not the droid you are looking for)

@Sirinn a few years ago I did look into coding but didn't go for it in the end as I felt too old and thought I wouldn't be able to do it. I'm 35 now. The company I looked at does have software developer course too, and help get you a job at the end. Since you went from sahm to this can I ask did you find it really difficult to get into?

@SmokeyDevil can I ask what role you do? The Flexibility sounds amazing. My worry about any full time work is my DH works shifts mostly backshift which can't be changed so I need to be able to collect the kids.

Wow @kittykarate sounds like you have a high pressured role.

@FeatheredHope its with a company called itcareerswitch

IT is a really wide field so depends what you want. Lots of demand and routes in.

Also really in demand in security as mentioned and even data protection

As others have said I.T. is male dominated, but I think everyone is trying to change this.

RE: support, are you really sure you want to do support,as it seems like a dying industry within I.T.

I think you should definitely get into I.T. but have a think what you really want to do.

[quote Tattiespuds]@Sirinn a few years ago I did look into coding but didn't go for it in the end as I felt too old and thought I wouldn't be able to do it. I'm 35 now. The company I looked at does have software developer course too, and help get you a job at the end. Since you went from sahm to this can I ask did you find it really difficult to get into?

@SmokeyDevil can I ask what role you do? The Flexibility sounds amazing. My worry about any full time work is my DH works shifts mostly backshift which can't be changed so I need to be able to collect the kids.

Wow @kittykarate sounds like you have a high pressured role.

@FeatheredHope its with a company called itcareerswitch[/quote]
Honestly, I was 35 when I started :) And I wasn't the oldest on the course either, some were late 30s and early 40s.

I found it really easy to get into because it's very supportive of newcomers, whether young or old. Pre-covid there were loads of meetups and networking opportunities and just fun coding days where you could try a new language for a day, it's a really great community.

I work in sales for an IT MSP. Strangely yesterday we were talking about a lack of women applying for service desk roles and how it would be beneficial to have a mixed team.

My MD is female (in the chat yesterday) and would happily employ suitable female candidates.

There is little to no flexibility for our service desk team though, obvs statutory carers/parent leave is allowed but you couldn't finish early on a whim as the desk has to be covered. Shifts can be swapped but it takes prior arrangement

Just looking at that company, OP. I would personally take any company that sells themselves as guaranteeing jobs with a massive pinch of salt. Their online reviews are quite good but dig a bit deeper on chat forums and the reviews aren’t quite as rosie.

By all means, consider a move into IT but I’d shop around a bit on the courses/company you pay to help you get there.

@Sirinn wow your giving me confidence to go back to my original goal. Which course did you use?

@tttigress that's good to know, I think the older I've gotten and longer km away from computers or any more my confidence is dropping. Im at a point of thinking about returning to work so guess I was thinking along what I can most likely do.

@SpottyBumPony oh I wasn't looking for leaving early just to ahuit etc was more what is typical as if it's like I shifts won't finish earlier than 6pm it's not a role in can consider as after-school is pick up 6pm latest and I have no one else to pick them up.

I've worked in IT for more than 30 years. A lot of IT helpdesk work is off-shored to India.

As others have said there's a wide range of roles. I work in cyber security but I'm a director. In my team I have architects, business analysts, project/programme managers, infrastructure engineers, enterprise architects, data analysts, a strategy consultant, change and comms managers and some others.

We are always on the lookout for female applicants and also 'return to work' people who we'd willingly train.

I work flexibly with my team, who are based all over the UK and the world. As long as they deliver and are available for the meetings they're needed in I don't mind if they have to do the school run halfway through the day or be offline for a school event.

Shift depends on what your employer offers. Our desk is open from 8-6, somebody covers 8-9 and someone else will do 5.30-6.

Then there's an out of hours service which people access through a special number. That is outsourced on the first instance but with people on call for escalation or if they needed to go to site

I worked in software development, account management, project management and senior management.

IT has been amazing for me in terms of where I am now working at home, flexible hours for kids and solid pay. I work 4 days per week so I have a nice balance too.

Thanks everyone for your opinions. I think my heart is set on IT but been a bit unsure of where I would fit in.
Any recommendations on best place/company to train with? I'm based in Devon if that's relevant.

I'm in IT security, which can go up to highly paid consultancy work. I'm not there yet though, I've done a bit of that work and didn't really like it much to be honest, too much faffing with people and I prefer the technical side more.

OP I would look around for apprenticeships. I work in IT for the Civil Service and we, along with lots of other companies, often run apprenticeship schemes. In the last few years we have run Cyber Security, Ethical Hacking, Business Analyst, Software testing and general IT apprenticeships. They are open to all ages and to external applicants.
I got into IT via a similar route 35 years ago and have loved it. I specialised in databases and have worked on all kinds of systems and projects.