Career change to data / software engineering

[C4r33rch4ng4]

Hello!

I’m a qualified chartered accountant and have been working in finance for around a decade, after doing a humanities degree at a RG uni.

I’ve worked in some specialist roles in the investment space but am feeling very burnt out and currently on a career break, after redundancy.

I really like Excel (and am good at / have significant experience with it) and have been self-teaching myself SQL, and trying to do the same with R and Python.

I would now like to transition into data analytics or software engineering but keep reading that the market is saturated. Being blunt, I find a lot of the politics at small finance firms incredibly toxic and don’t enjoy the accountancy side of things. What I do like are logic, numbers, interpreting datasets, problem solving and working with people. I am also really hungry and excited to learn something new.

Im looking at roles in the public or charities sectors but also keen to not pigeonhole myself. I’m also contemplating a relevant masters or course in Jan 26 and trying to get any kind of job whilst I’m doing this, to get some practical experience.

Could anyone advise as to whether this is a sensible move and how it might be perceived? I do think I have several transferable skills and am obviously numerical / comfortable with using data to tell stories - but conscious it’s a tough jobs market.

The market absolutely died in 2023 and is barely recovering. And the pay has gone to shit.

Unless you think you can get into the top 5% of the field, you'd likely get better pay as a welder.

Really? Not the answer I was hoping for!

I have a couple of friends in the industry who seem to be doing well.

is it a ridiculous prospect then?

Yes, for new entrants it's become incredibly challenging (though not impossible). Here's the best set of data https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/

If you're enjoying R, pull some data and have a proper think; some help here with data exploration: https://www.kaggle.com/

Agree that the job market (for new entrants/ little or no experience) is absolutely rubbish. Even if you have a qualification. Pay for those roles is also not great.

I retrained in DS last year. Not particularly because I was planning to become a DS, but I really enjoyed the course (MSc) so started exploring the possibility of working in it. Essentially, unless you have experience already or have a PhD, it's going to be very hard to get a job. Even data analyst roles are advertised with a huge tech stack requirement.

That being said, I do know someone who retrained (self-taught) last year and then got a £50k p.a. job as a DS - so I guess it is possible.

Things that will help you are certifications, SQL, PowerBI (or equiv - if you want data analyst type roles), Python (obvs), and ML skills. Presumably your maths/ stats is already strong - but having a really solid understanding of the stats/ maths on which DS/ ML is built is important. And projects. Do loads of projects that you can put on GitHub/ LinkedIn. And not the basic Kaggle Titanic ones that everyone else does!

That's if you're applying for jobs. But TBH, I stopped doing that as they were all at companies/ orgs I didn't want to work for (fintech, tech, marketing, big corps) and would probably be as soul-sapping as your current gig. Another route is trying to pick up some freelance DA/ DS jobs (or even doing volunteer stuff for friends/ charities/ local small businesses) to build up your experience/ portfolio.

As always do your own research but data analytics and science are potentially in the strategy spot for AI to replace people. Probably over the next three or four years.
I Design information technology systems with AI. 15 years so far, with general I.T. and other specific I.T. Fields over 35 years.
I'm quite worried for my three children who are 16 and under.