Job skills in high demand...

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I live in the North East and even with 7 years experience it's a pain to get good jobs. Since being made redundant I've been lucky in getting contracts but the future is less clear for me. Simply put your in the wrong city for a good IT career.

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Yup I agree I know I could walk into a job in London on a lot more money and at a higher position than I'm on in Newcastle. Still I point blank refuse to move to London. I couldn't handle my son having a cockney accent

 

You could just walk into a job down there? I don't know a single person who has just walked into one from the North, friends with Masters in Clinical Embryology and Biochemists can't get a job down there and came back soon enough. The London dream is a myth for 95% of the people that move down there, the other 5% usually have something pre arranged.

 

Wrong wording but I mean I could easily get a job down in London for more pay and better career opportunities than Newcastle. Of course you would arrange it before upping sticks but I have a lot of experience and get jobs in Newcastle even when the market is rubbish. The market is vastly bigger in London than Newcastle and that means a lot more opportunities. I tend to get most jobs if I make it to interview stage. I'm not blowing smoke up my own backside but I believe in my abilities, skills and experience and have good references. I believe my choice of home has really held my career back but that's the choice I've made. I've worked in London a lot so yes I also know the market down there. Reason I don't move down there is simply I don't like London enough to live there.

 

Isn't a lot of the experience and skill benefit that makes us valuable up here, cancelled out when the market and people in that market are increased by eight times the amount as in London? I really remain unconvinced that London has anything to offer any more and that there remains any true benefit to being down there, even in jobs. I mean, the BBC are upping sticks and moving half of their business to Manchester, what does that say?

It wasn't a poke at you by the way mate just creating debate.

 

I didn't take it as a slur mate. I didn't mean my reply to sound like I'm the best IT professional out there either but it was to get my point over

My opinion is that the BBC are doing the right thing in moving and that will be due to cost saving (mainly rent and salaries I would imagine) and a lot of other companies would benefit in doing the same in moving their HQ's out of London but at the end of the day they won't as London is one of the biggest financial markets in the world and having a presence in London = status. At the end of the day most big institutes are based in London so that is where the jobs are. Manchester also has a good IT market from what I gather but Newcastle is a different situation as the market is pretty small compared to other cities.

As for what makes us more valuable then yes it does but your competing over a handful of jobs that crop up rarely compared to other cities. I can only say this from a viewpoint of living and working in Newcastle.

 

While London should be irrelevant as companies and jobs can be done anywhere, truth is we don't have that, just like the paperless office never arrived, we aren't all working from home, and we aren't all working two day weeks as machines are doing all the work...

Truth is there are just far more jobs in London, many people can double their income just by moving there, go contact at same time possibly even more. Sure the cost of living is high, you'll be stressed, and probably hate your life, but if careers all that counts he's probably right...

As for Reading, its the 'Thames Valley / Thames Corridor', its two minutes from London and Heathrow, thats why its UK silicon valley, its number two place to work in IT after London in my book, and still in the south east and near london. So it doesn't really break Zeb's point.

 

There are far more jobs but far, far more people. I was reading about the UK Silicon valley thing, was good to see but I still believe the benefits of moving down south are nowhere near as great as people tend to be convinced.

@Michael

Looking at the stats just now, London is third worst place for unemployment being topped by the North East and the Midlands.

Move to the North West

 

Yeah point taken about more people but the ratio of IT jobs to people is far greater in London than anywhere else in my opinion. It's the capital and the business centre of our country so it makes sense for the industry to be far bigger there than anywhere else in the country.

 

I can only speak from my anecdotal experiences but the they are the top two places to work in the south and my career did VASTLY better when there over other locations in the south. Most IT jobs are for company head offices, and theres simply loads of them in those locations.

Unemployment and poverty are high in London, but I suspect that does not apply to skilled IT positions, it's more likely to apply to population as a whole and all sectors including unskilled sectors. Yes there are more people, but also FAR more positions, if you are any good its going to give you more opportunities than you might see in your local town/village/city in a whole year.

 

IT jobs up here in Aberden are pretty readily available

 

I got banned from driving by a scottish court, so not too keen on it any more

 

Thats because no one wants to work up there p

 

oh dear, whoops!

hahaha It's not soooooo bad.

 

lol, tbh I can't wait to get out of Scotland

 

Aye? Plans on where you will go? I would quite like a job in Glasgow!

 

Nothing set in stone yet but my plan will take me state side, Edinburgh would be a better place to live, most of Glasgow is a Sh*t hole (recently voted the most miserable place to live in the UK )

 

I agree fully. I earn the same as my southern colleagues, yet I am substantially better off in real terms. It's not often I agree with a scouser, but this is one of them rare times that everything one has said, has been spot on.