AIBU to move into Tech by doing one of these government funded bootcamp skills courses

[Cobwebs5]

Good morning,

Could I have some advice from people in the Tech industry please ?

So I want to move into Tech. I think I’ve decided that I’m going to do a bootcamp, probably coding although I’m possibly more suited to business analysis or project management. I have A levels and a Business degree a looooong time ago. Since then I’ve been self employed.
Long term, I would probably like to work from home, contracting. I’m a single mother, so money is very important.
I’ve found a free course, that is for 13 weeks 8.30am to 5pm. This is just about doable, but obviously a big commitment. To put in that amount of effort, I need to be sure that this is absolutely the best course for me.

I’m in the West Midlands

www.gov.uk/guidance/find-a-skills-bootcamp/west-midlands

Skills Bootcamp Location of training Provider
Agile project management Online OpenClassrooms
Applied cyber security Online University of Birmingham
Artificial intelligence Online University of Huddersfield
AWS cloud data engineer Online Firebrand Training
Business analysis Online OpenClassrooms
Cloud Online Learning Curve Group
Cloud computing and data analytics Online Edge Hill University
Coding Birmingham and online Northcoders
Coding Birmingham and online University of Birmingham
Coding and web design Online The Development Manager
Cyber security Online TechTalent Academy
Cyber security Online The Skills Network
Cyber security Online Capita
Cyber security Online Learning Curve Group
Cyber security Online CAPSLOCK
Cyber security operations Birmingham Birmingham City University
Cyber technician Online Firebrand Training
Cyber technologist Online Firebrand Training
Data analysis Online The Skills Network
Data analysis Online The Skills Network
Data analysis Online Local Education and Development (LEAD Training)
Data analysis Online OpenClassrooms
Data analyst Online Babington
Data analyst Online Avado
Data analyst Online Apprentify Ltd
Data analytics Birmingham and online University of Birmingham
Data analytics and visualisation: from advanced Excel to Power BI Online Teesside University
Data and service management Online Northeastern University London
Data citizen Online Cambridge Spark
Data engineering Online Durham University
Data engineering Online QA Ltd
Data engineering Birmingham and online Northcoders
Data literacy Online Avado
Data science Online TechTalent Academy
Data science Online HyperionDev
Data science Online The University of Manchester
Data science Online The University of Nottingham Online
Data science Online The University of Warwick
Data science (with Microsoft certification) Online Northumbria University
Data science and cloud systems Online Birmingham City University
Data skills for creative industries Birmingham University of Birmingham
Data technician Online Firebrand Training
Data technician Online Learning Curve Group
Data utilisation and analysis Online QA Ltd
Desktop support Online Learning Curve Group
DevOps: DevNetSkills by The Open University Online The Open University
Digital Online Manchester Metropolitan University
Digital Online Twin Training
Digital content creation Birmingham and online Creative Alliance
Digital design Online Apprentify Ltd
Digital leadership Online Babington
Digital literacy Online Learning Curve Group
Digital marketer Online Avado
Digital marketing Online LEAD Training
Digital marketing Online We Are Digital
Digital marketing Birmingham BritAsia
Digital marketing Online Creative Alliance
Digital marketing Online Digisheds
Digital marketing Online Learn Play Foundation
Digital marketing Online Studio School
Digital marketing Online The Skills Network
Digital marketing Online Think Employment
Digital marketing Birmingham and online Creative Alliance
Digital marketing Online Local Education and Development (LEAD Training)
Digital marketing Online OpenClassrooms
Digital marketing Online Apprentify Ltd
Digital support and marketing Online The Development Manager
Front-end web development and UX Online University of Birmingham
Full stack web development Online School of Code
Full stack web design Online Creative Alliance
Google cloud data engineer Online Firebrand Training
ICT cloud Online QA Ltd
Infrastructure Online The Skills Network
IT sales associate Online Firebrand Training
IT support Online Lifetime Training Group Limited
IT technician Online Firebrand Training
Junior software developer Online Firebrand Training
Machine learning and AI for business applications Online Teesside University
Microsoft Azure data engineer Online Firebrand Training
Microsoft data analyst Online Firebrand Training
Microsoft data engineer Online Firebrand Training
Microsoft Dynamics 365 engineer Online Firebrand Training
Microsoft finance and operations engineer Online Firebrand Training
Microsoft IT engineer Online Firebrand Training
Microsoft Power platform engineer Online Firebrand Training
Microsoft software developer Online Firebrand Training
Network engineer Online Lifetime Training Group Limited
Real time 3D Online Mastered Studios
Service design and management with ServiceNow Online Northeastern University London
Software developer Online Digisheds

Software development Online TechTalent Academy
Software development Online QA Ltd
Software development Online Durham University
Software development Online Capita
Software development Online Apprentify Ltd
Software development (with Microsoft certification) Online Northumbria University
Software engineer Online Firebrand Training
Software engineering Online HyperionDev
Software engineering Online The University of Manchester
Software engineering Online The University of Nottingham Online
Software engineering Online The University of Warwick
Software engineering and development Online Aston University
Software tester Online QA Ltd
Tech, networking and cyber security Online The Development Manager
Technical sales Online The Skills Network
Technical service desk Online The Skills Network
Technical support Online Firebrand Training
UI/UX design for games Online Teesside University
User experience and user interface design Birmingham and online Creative Alliance
UX and front end web development Birmingham University of Birmingham
UX design Online OpenClassrooms
UX/UI Online University of Birmingham
Web design and development Birmingham and online Creative Alliance
Web development Online HyperionDev
Web development Online The University of Manchester
Web development Online The University of Nottingham Online
Web development Online The University of Warwick
Web development Online OpenClassrooms
Web development skills Online Bath Spa University
3D CAD for backstage theatre Birmingham and online Creative Alliance

northcoders.com/our-courses/coding-bootcamp

Introduction Week

We'll begin by helping you build your confidence with JavaScript, laying the

foundations for you to be able to handle data and create interactivity on websites and apps. We'll also provide you with resources to help you build your HTML and CSS skills.

Fundamentals

First things first. We’ll give you a solid understanding of the fundamentals and best practices of programming. We'll cover test-driven development, pair programming, object-oriented programming and a range of other core tools and workplace practices through the medium of JavaScript.

Back End

JavaScript is the only language that can be run both on the front and back end. Once you’ve mastered the fundamentals of coding in JavaScript, we show you how we can use use Node.js to run code for the back end, and focus on ways of dealing with asynchronous programming. We'll look at APIs and databases, and cover Express and SQL. We’ll also work with some pretty cool third-party data sets and APIs, and help you deploy applications to the cloud!

Front End

It's front end next - you'll learn all about the DOM (Document Object Model) and how to make accessible websites with semantic HTML and responsive CSS, and we'll introduce you to UX. React is the most in-demand front-end framework. We'll teach you to use it in-depth - but we don't stop there. We'll introduce you to its key peripheral technologies, and teach you all about testing front-end applications.

Project Phase

There's no better way to consolidate and extend your knowledge, and prove what you can do, than to get hands on with a real, green-field team project. With previous groups exploring Virtual Reality, Machine Learning, image recognition and blockchain (to name a few!); what you create is limited by your imagination. Curious as to what our previous graduates have created?

Or this one by the same company, same hours. northcoders.com/our-courses/data-engineering-bootcamp5

Introduction Week

We’ll begin by helping you build your confidence with JavaScript, laying the foundations for you to be able to handle data and functions.

Fundamentals

First things first. We’ll give you a solid understanding of the fundamentals and best practices of programming. We'll cover test-driven development, pair programming, object-oriented programming and a range of other core tools and workplace practices through the medium of JavaScript.

Back End

JavaScript is the only language that can be run both on the front and back end. Once you’ve mastered the fundamentals of coding in JavaScript, we show you how we can use use Node.js to run code for the back end, and focus on ways of dealing with asynchronous programming. We'll look at APIs and databases, and cover Express and SQL.

Python

Python is a popular a programming language used in machine learning, artificial intelligence, web development and data analysis. Fortunately it is relatively easy to learn when compared to pretty much any other programming language, due to its simple and easy-to-use syntax. After getting to grips with the basics, we’ll learn how to use Python's extensive suite of data libraries to automate complex management tasks.

SQL and Data Modelling

Using SQL we will learn how to turn raw data into easy-to-consume data sets. Data Models ensure consistency in naming conventions, default values, semantics, and security, as well as optimising performance and data quality. We'll start to learn the fundamentals of data warehousing and how to deal with different file data formats like JSON, XML and Parquet.

DevOps

DevOps is a combination of the two words “development” and “operations” - it's an umbrella term that describes how a development team manages the transition from writing software through to deploying a live, working application. Using Amazon Web Services, we will discover how to deploy applications and data infrastructure in the “cloud”.

Practical Infrastructure Tasks

This is where we take everything we have learned to deploy a Python ingestion function on an EC2 instance with database source, deploy a Python transformation function on Lambda and populate a data warehouse from refined data.

Both of these courses seem quite broad. Would I be better to do something more focused like a Python, AI, Data Analysis, Web Design ?

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thank you.

@Jamepume I'm also going to be doing the ServiceNow bootcamp.
I did work in IT but left for a time, longer than expected. Now looking forward to getting back to it and refreshing my skills.

I'm doing a firebrand Bootcamp at the moment. It's a lot of work. Two days a week with Firebrand and at least another day (or more if you are preparing for exams). If you are going to take any MS exams you will have to do a lot of revision and extra reading as the courses don't cover the practical application of the knowledge you'll be covering.
I'm doing data technician. The first part is excel and it's pretty easy if you know excel reasonably well. The second part is MS Azure and I'm hating it, I do the pre work, I attend the tutor led sessions and then I attempt the exam questions and they bear no relation to what we've been taught (ie no teaching of the process of decision making in setting up Azure resources).
Don't underestimate how much time you'll be spending on one of these courses if you are already working.

How about cyber security? I personally think much less people do cyber security bootcamps than coding ones. Is it easier to find entry level jobs with cyber security bootcamp training than coding training? What’s your experience with that?

This one's always baffled me. I don't have any direct experience with explicitly-security-related roles, although I've done a lot of work related to security in the past (if that makes sense).

You're correct in that a lot of security folk I've come across get into the job via bootcamps these days, but that seems daft to me because to do IT security properly you have to know a fair bit about everything relating to IT - from low-level operating systems knowledge to networks to coding (in all popular languages) to management process frameworks etc etc. Go back 15 or 20 years, and security professionals were on a par with systems architects in terms of career progression - effectively at the level of "I've completed IT", because it took a decade or two to gather that kind of knowledge. That doesn't seem to be the case now, and I genuinely can't reason why.

That said, we had to do some significant external penetration testing at my last place (a finance startup), because "regulation", and we picked a fairly well-respected company to do it - they were bloody useless, and didn't do or tell us anything that couldn't be picked up from half an hour of Googling. They basically didn't come up with anything that couldn't be worked out from reading Wikipedia and using OpenSCAP.

I’m supposed to be starting a bootcamp in January, a desktop technician one. I want to get into I.T but finding it hard to know what kind of area interests me or how to get into it. There were so many different bootcamps and providers on the government website I wasn’t sure which one to go for.
Hope I’ve made the right choice! Good luck to everyone else who is doing one.

@Adelais well done for taking the first step though.

The better ones are programmatic. Meaning the vendors (tech companies) have invested in running programmes and people to make these work in terms of content, partnerships with universities and people that talk to potential employers about it.

These are definitely the better ones like the ServiceNow one.

You know what? That's a great course to do first, especially if you're not sure where you want it to go beyond "something in the tech area". It's a fantastic basis for just about any technical career you care to come up with, and I know loads of people (including myself) who started there and branched out to all sorts of cool and interesting stuff.

I think it is definitely realistic to get an entry level job. And growth prospects are pretty bright if you deliver.

if you are a female OP, join one of the many #womeninTech groups and ask for help/mentorship. You’ll get a lot of support.

(I’m a senior manager in Tech)

Thanks @jeaux90 and @xyhere
I did think doing the desktop technician course might be best for a complete beginner like myself. I also started the free cyber security course with ISC2 I saw mentioned on another thread which I’m quite enjoying.
I know you’re guaranteed a job interview at the end but I’m wondering if they just send everyone on the course to the same interview!

xyhere or anyone who is knowledgeable enough…what is the best computer for courses like these? Which operating system? I’m only asking because everybody says something else. Even the so-called experts have totally opposing opinions.
I’ve already done research into this and everybody says different things.

The course tutors said Firefox or Chrome. Tech guys on YouTube say Mac or Windows. Google search says Linux..Jesus I just want to scream with frustration!
Buying a laptop is a big thing and I don’t want to buy the wrong one!

Price is a big factor, I don’t want to spend more than 1k on it. Would a high-end chrome book do the job? A really good, modern one with 8 GB is around £500-600. On the other hand a MacBook Air -or Pro is around £1000. Twice as much as a chrome book or even more…
Windows..I don’t really like…
Anyway, it’s so confusing for someone who doesn’t know these things.
Help!

It honestly depends on the course. If you're doing a code course based on Ruby, Python or similar then you can use basically anything - even a Raspberry Pi would do the job! Although for those programming languages, a Unix-like operating system is best, so you're looking at Linux or Mac.

A lot of the security courses will, oddly, pretty much require Windows (although that's information from a few years ago, may be different now).

Chromebooks are, unfortunately, not really appropriate. While you can get Linux working on them, it's a hell of a faff and not really worth it unless you really want to know how it's done.

Personally, I'd find any Windows laptop you like the look of, and whack Linux on it. It's really easy, and most from the last few years will pretty much work out of the box with something like Ubuntu.

Don't forget, Firefox and Chrome both work absolutely fine under Linux, so you don't have any worries there.

Aside from that...specific recommendations depend entirely on your budget. Definitely don't go for anything that's got less than 8GB RAM, and make sure it's got SSD storage to save your sanity (doesn't really matter how big, you can upgrade it later - unless it's a Mac). Other than that, the single most important thing is to get a high-resolution screen. You want 13.3" minimum size, and at least 1920x1080 resolution. A second monitor is also going to end up as a must-have at some point, but probably not at the beginning unless you're feeling flush.

Hope that helps :)

Thank you xyherethat’s useful!

@Cinecitta I'd go windows Laptop too, mainly because they're the most common in workplaces so best to learn on one. From what I see on the commuter train and in my own workplace the Lenovo Thinkpad range is incredibly popular.

Personally I prefer a Mac but work have provisioned me a Lenovo Thinkpad T480 which does the job fine. Easy to use, quick enough.

That thinkpad looks like a good one and not too expensive! Cheers!

@Adelais honestly there is a massive shortage of skills in the SN area. Employees and Partners have to register in the programme for access to the people coming out of the boot camp. I know some of them take more than one at a time because they are building out internal COEs/departments specifically for this tech.

Tech is so wide, my advice is find something you enjoy and have an aptitude for.

I've been in the industry over 25 years and the rate of change and development is rapid so motivation to keep pace is important.

If you have windows, you can run your software in Linux. For backend or full stack devs, we run the software we develop containerised with Linux images. I have not used a windows image but not sure if it exists. Windows has windows subsystem for Linux which you should use for docker desktop.

So my long answer is windows and Mac are both fine. You can run windows and have Linux and if you work for a bigger enterprise kind of place, you will be given windows most likely. Start ups have more freedom over operating systems. Firefox and chrome are browsers and I use chrome. I’m not great with JavaScript front end but chrome has decent react dev tools.

Another thing to know is that even if you use windows, you must be familiar with Linux. Most stackoverflow or dev docs seem to be written with Linux in mind. Also with windows, you might consider getting familiar with powershell 7 in addition to Linux based tools for scripting on your local environment.

Extremely sensible and beneficial post - I'm glad you said it. Learning to code isn't an automatic gateway to earning good money, you firstly need to understand technology, trends and best practice, then you need to actually be good at coding, and then you need to learn how to balance all of this with being able to problem solve, engage with other Devs, PMs, BAs etc and work well within a team.

I'm a PM and everything you say is right. There's thousands of graduates coming out of uni every year who can code, PM etc. The difference is I'm good at what I do and can prove it but if I'd simply taken a PRINCE2 course expecting to be on 50k+ straight away I'd be laughed out the room.

I'd always say to the OP to go for it but a bootcamp plus basic knowledge is definitely more at the 20-25k end of things, however after 3-4 years of building up a portfolio they may be able to get significantly more... Assuming they're actually good at it of course.

@Notwavingbutsignalling - just wanted to wish you best of luck! You sound like you have persevered and built your knowledge for a number of years. Have a look at jobs boards. I was looking at them for a couple of years before spotting a lucky break (where they were willing to take people without a traditional software background - back then coding boot camps were less common, so not expected). Think about how far you are willing to commute or if you are able to move location - as this may influence what jobs are available.

a lot of stuff is luck. Maybe you will get an interviewer like @xyhere or maybe you will get one like @Name12343212 . It’s easy to get discouraged, but if you find it interesting (which no doubt you do- if you have been doing stuff for a number of years) - keep going. The thing about teenage coders is - they don’t care. They are not doing it to get a nice, well paid job, they are just in it for fun and curiosity - unleash the teenage coder in you!

Love this!!! You will need a passion for it to be able to get good.

I'm my generation a lot of teenage coders were initially and predominantly interested in computer games. It was their reason to code, they were obsessed with games and not computers. At university, they weren't very good and they became average developers. I was interested in maths and computers but (probably due to gender- there were no girls in my school who coded but about 10 boys) wasnt introduced to coding until university.

There were boys at university who were interested in coding, maths and computers. They might have liked games but it didn't drive them. Their passion to code made them amazing.

It's been the same story throughout my career. It's the people who are excited to make the computer do things and understand how it works the see successful. And it doesn't take that long to get good if you have that passion and the right way of thinking/solving problems.

The teenage coders were largely a myth and made up of people who had the right opportunities and not the right motivations.

But perhaps I'm just old as more kids are trying coding earlier. But even so I reckon there are loads of teenagers who would be awesome but don't have the opportunity

Hi All,

Just a quick update. I’ve been learning JavaScript for the last few months and last Tuesday I passed my entrance test for the following course.

https://northcoders.com/our-courses/data-engineering-bootcamp

It’s 13 weeks full time, 8.30am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. The statistics for placing people who finish the course, in well paid jobs, are very good.

I’ll report back again when I’ve finished the course when I’ll hopefully have some job offers.

Thank you to everyone on this thread for the encouragement, I’m super excited about starting the course.

Congratulations! Hope it works out.

I had an really interesting tech job

Parts of the job were out sourced to India

I was made redundant

However I have some transferable skills, so I was able to gain new employment

My advice is beware that some existing jobs will become automated. Some jobs will be out sourced to cheaper countries

Congratulations OP! I was reading the info on this thread with interest last year. Great to hear you’re progressing so well.

Thanks to everyone who posted on here.

I have completed theISC2 course in cyber and just about to finish a 14 week course in Java and software development.

Cyber was hard enough without a working knowledge of some tools but interesting. The most beneficial to me has been the software dev assignments where we looked at

coding design
testing ( debugging:variable watching, unit testing, etc)
methodologies: agile, waterfall, scrum, kanban
tools: compilers, etc

We also used IntelliJ to learn Java including

calculators
arrays
methods
datatypes

So, I am d Ed unitedly feeling as though I have a much better sense of the landscape and what the different fields involve and I am going to try and find a direction in SD I think

btw, anyone attending Tech week?

I read this thread with a great deal of interest last year, as I also started a tech government funded skills bootcamp. How are you getting on @Cobwebs5?
I hope it's going well for you.

I didn't go into coding, I picked one of the other tech fields. My experience with picking a provider was that I was really careful who I chose and I went on industry profile, awards and "acclaim" (and was probably rather swayed by persuasive social media posts about success rates). My feeling, with hindsight, is that there can be an awful lot of smoke and mirrors going on, unfortunately. Things may not really be what they seem.

I did complete the course, and did land a job - so in terms of their figures that would be a success. However I rapidly realised I was woefully ill prepared for the role. It's been really stressful and I'm trying to plan my next move, possibly a move out of the field entirely.

It would be good to hear if there are some success stories. Perhaps coding is easier to cram bootcamp-style to the level required. But I must admit I feel quite cynical about the whole thing now and feel that once these things become money-making operations it's quite hard / almost impossible to find objective info on individual operators or the schemes in general.