Help me decide which job/course to take, please

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I have been offered a place on a full-time software development course which aims to have me job-ready by the end of the course. I know most of what they plan to teach me already so I am confident I will achieve their targets. Throughout the course, I get help building a portfolio, networking within the industry, and help with my CV. There is no guaranteed job at the end of it but I would get ongoing support with job searches, interviews and further developing my portfolio and industry connections.

The course is three months long and will mean I need to claim UC and contributions based JSA for three months which will leave us £1200 a month worse off.

If I do not find a job within 6 months the contributions-based JSA will end and we will be left with £700 a month to live off, out of which we will need to pay towards rent, along with all other bills excluding council tax. There is also no guarantee that any job (if I do get a job) will pay more than NMW, although it would be unusual for a junior developer job to pay NMW.

Or I can take the NMW job I have just been offered which after transport costs leaves us £800 a month worse off.

We already struggle some months and absolutely cannot afford to lose £1000 a month or more.

Do I take the course in the hope it leads to something better paid but with no guarantees or do I take the job which means we are guaranteed to be no less than £800 a month down?

I've also been accepted on a part-time software development course which teaches me the same things as the 3 month course and offers the same support but is a minium of 12 months long.

Personally I would take the 2nd option but do the 12 month course alongside, yes it will take you slightly longer and it will be a hard slogg but it gives you stability and a chance to develop

I don’t follow some of your post - you talk about being worse off by different amounts - worse off that what? Do you have a job you’re thinking of leaving?

more generally though I’d ask this course provider for more information on how many prior students specifically have got jobs, with whom and for what types of salaries. It’s in their interests to make it sounds good but you need to drill into if especially if you’d be making yourself worse off short term to do it.

It probably got confusing because I worked it out on based on what I had/will have not what I would lose but I was reluctant to post income on here because I know that can get nasty.

I was made redundant from my last job and I'm struggling to find anything local on the same level as I was. The job is a massive step down for me going from mid-level back to entry-level.

Basically, I cannot afford either of the options. The sums just do not add up and I don't know how to make them add up but obviously, I would be significantly worse off with option a - the three months intensive course, however, there is a possibility of it leading to something better after 3 months.

The course providers say that 93% of their students are employed within 6 months of finishing the course but they cannot/will not tell me how many of them are employed full-time in the software industry. For all I know 80% are working part-time at their local chippy.

Option B) The full-time job leaves me worse off compared to my last job by £800-£1000 a month with no possibility of that improving short-term.

Last night I was leaning towards option B but trying my hardest to skill up enough to freelance some small projects to top up my income, however, I have just had the contract through and I am not impressed with the holiday entitlement or lack of shift allowance for unsociable hours nor with their statement I will have pay towards training if I leave with 12 months of the initial training or any training course they opt to put me through.

Hmm. I would want some real evidence of past students' employment. I am an ex software dev and towards the end of my career it was pretty much mandatory to have a computer science or software engineering degree AND some work experience (but that could be from a placement) in order to get employed as a junior dev, though obviously I can't say whether all my employers were typical or not. So I am a bit skeptical of these bootcamp type courses if there's no proof of the graduates getting employed as devs afterwards.

I did a software job search a few months ago and there were significantly fewer vacancies in software development than there used to be so I think it's going to be tough to find a job at the moment. It might be worth doing the part time course so you can work too but again only if you can get some sense of what other course graduates are doing. I had a look at a free cyber security bootcamp type course and quickly realised it was a waste of time but perhaps not all of these things are.

I assume you've looked for reviews for these courses and either not found any or not found any that said anything useful? I have seen some bootcamps reviewed on Trustpilot.

Good luck with it, whatever you decide. Redundancy is horrible.

Thanks @arejcenencehche3uh9f3, that's really helpful. The full-time course is actually a foundation degree in web development after which I plan to go on to do a full degree in software engineering. The boot camp doesn't end in any qualification.

I did look at reviews on Trust Pilot and they all seem positive but none mention getting a job as a result of the bootcamp.

The course provider is Just-IT.

I think I am leaning towards the full-time course and continuing to job hunt. The job I have been offered is 90 min commute each way, plus nights and weekends, I don't think the wage is acceptable and it doesn't reflect the unsociable hours worked or the skill needed for the role, so I have turned that one down. I have a second interview on Monday for a role in town. The pay is still not great but it's only 20 mins away and no nights or weekends.

Do you already have a degree - I'm guessing not? It's just that if you do there are computer science Masters degrees aimed at non computing graduates.

I do but it is in Canine Behaviour and Training rather than an academic subject. I also have some professional IT certifications but these are all related to networking rather than development.

I'm interested in the degree more for the programming languages it teaches rather than the qualification itself, iyswim?

I know I could self-teach but my thinking is I will learn more with a more structured learning style and would have something at the end of it to prove my knowledge.

Do the course. I think the chances of you getting a job at the end of it as long as you can do what needs to be done for the jobs you’re applying for is good.

I know someone who dropped out his degree halfway through year One and just applied for jobs (admittedly with a dodgy cv which said he had experience). He’d taught himself to code via YouTube and could do what he said he could though. He got lots of interviews and had to do some sort of tech test for each one. They certainly weren’t bothered that he didn’t have a degree.