Is IT still a good career path or are most of us be out a job in the future

Hi guys

The last six months this has been bothering me on whether or fact there is a future in IT in places like the Uk. I have been in IT for around 4 years and building quite of list of experience and skills for example hardware, servers, Linux, networking and now starting getting involved in programming.

Don't get me wrong I love IT but I am worry that might not be great future as I know a lot of jobs are getting exported where it is much cheaper. I know you always need people to look after stuff physically. But will these jobs be hard to find and crap pay.

Just wondering what thoughts you have from people that have been in this industry longer than me.

Thanks
Tom

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Comments

chrisone

Technology is the future of all man kind. All area of careers will involve technology and I.T.

From farming to space explorations, I.T. and technical engineering will be at the forefront of everything. The food you eat involves I.T. the farmers tools will need some sort of technical I.T. related expert.

I.T. is a very broad term involving 100s of technicalities involving 1,000's of area of commerce.

WAR, AUTOMOBILE, FOOD, SECURITY, PHYSICAL SECURITY, EMERGENCY SERVICES, WATER SERVICES, CONSTRUCTION, BIOLOGICAL, EDUCATION, ECONOMIC, GOVERNMENTAL, pretty much everything that needs to evolve for the better will involve some form of technology and as along as technology is behind such evolution there has to be I.T. to administer it.

UnixGuy

Turgon wrote: »

Service providers are going the same way. Watch And technical people dont run anything anymore. That's a management responsibility.

Well in a way yes, I can see the number of managers increasing, specially with ITIL & ISO stuff getting in.

But who will do technical troubleshooting/implementations/upgrades/migrations ?

erpadmin

UnixGuy wrote: »

But who will do technical troubleshooting/implementations/upgrades/migrations ?

*You* [as the technical resource] will still perform all of that (as will I...)

But none of that is happening without the direction of management. With the exception of troubleshooting, the other items you mentioned has to be driven by the business you are in. That drive happens under direction of management. There is no migration that occurs without a change management process to document it. As for upgrades, there needs to be a compelling business need to drive the upgrade (e.g. Are there new features that are wanted by users? Will support for the old system end by such-and-such date?) Implementations are the same as upgrades (except of course it's the first time you are putting in the system....).

The only time I can remember when "management" did not drive the business needs of a technical implementation (be it an upgrade or otherwise) is during the dot.com era...when the 19 year old college dropout with an MCSE was dictating to the business what THEY need(ed) to succeed........those days are not coming back.....

UnixGuy

I totally agree with you, and that's the case right now anyway.

But when you're talking about big installations, major infrastructure upgrades, Disaster recovery solutions, backup solutions, ..etc it's not one technical guy, you're talking about team(s) of technical people. In service providers you ideally have many clients & technical people who can do installations and serious troubleshooting are always in need. So do you think that technical-oriented jobs will be in need for long time ? specially for people with specialized skills ?

erpadmin wrote: »

*You* [as the technical resource] will still perform all of that (as will I...)

But none of that is happening without the direction of management. With the exception of troubleshooting, the other items you mentioned has to be driven by the business you are in. That drive happens under direction of management. There is no migration that occurs without a change management process to document it. As for upgrades, there needs to be a compelling business need to drive the upgrade (e.g. Are there new features that are wanted by users? Will support for the old system end by such-and-such date?) Implementations are the same as upgrades (except of course it's the first time you are putting in the system....).

The only time I can remember when "management" did not drive the business needs of a technical implementation (be it an upgrade or otherwise) is during the dot.com era...when the 19 year old college dropout with an MCSE was dictating to the business what THEY need(ed) to succeed........those days are not coming back.....

erpadmin

UnixGuy wrote: »

I totally agree with you, and that's the case right now anyway.

But when you're talking about big installations, major infrastructure upgrades, Disaster recovery solutions, backup solutions, ..etc it's not one technical guy, you're talking about team(s) of technical people.

Depending on the size of the shop and the scope of the job, it could very easily be one guy. Just as easily, it could be a team of guys.

UnixGuy wrote: »

So do you think that technical-oriented jobs will be in need for long time ? specially for people with specialized skills ?

You can bet your favorite shell script that I do...

.

Keep in mind though...that the technical people who last in this industry are those who understand the underlying business they support. If all you know is technical, then the chances of surviving the cut is very small. You can be the best tech guy on the planet.....you have to know the business that drives your shop, if for the very least to keep your job. At the most, to move up and get promoted.

Turgon

UnixGuy wrote: »

Well in a way yes, I can see the number of managers increasing, specially with ITIL & ISO stuff getting in.

But who will do technical troubleshooting/implementations/upgrades/migrations ?

Fewer people in the industrialised countries. A lot of this will become more virtualised and automated. There will be good jobs for technical elites but they will be few and far between. Expect to find more support going nearshore and farshore. Also expect a lot more thin clients. Light touch repeatable technology at the edges.

millworx

You know I feel ya on outsourcing. I'm not a racist or anything, but working here at Cisco I've noticed one thing. It is rare to see a white person working here. Everytime I step off the lightrail to go to work, I'm standing around 9 indians. And honestly the ratio here is probably about 1 american to every 9 indians.

Most of them are all working here on H1b visa's, none of them are permanent employees they are all contractors. In fact, Cisco's goal is to move almost all the IT support / design to their new Bangalore India headquarters.

It kind of makes me sad that a great american company would rather bring in cheap labor on H1B visas rather than hire some great talent here locally that needs the work. And to be quite honest, in having conversations with some of my coworkers, I'm amazed they have the jobs they do, because to be frank, some of them are plain dumb, almost as if they didn't even interview to get the job they were contracted on for.

Eventually there will be an equalling out, but it won't be anytime soon.

Turgon

millworx wrote: »

You know I feel ya on outsourcing. I'm not a racist or anything, but working here at Cisco I've noticed one thing. It is rare to see a white person working here. Everytime I step off the lightrail to go to work, I'm standing around 9 indians. And honestly the ratio here is probably about 1 american to every 9 indians.

Most of them are all working here on H1b visa's, none of them are permanent employees they are all contractors. In fact, Cisco's goal is to move almost all the IT support / design to their new Bangalore India headquarters.

It kind of makes me sad that a great american company would rather bring in cheap labor on H1B visas rather than hire some great talent here locally that needs the work. And to be quite honest, in having conversations with some of my coworkers, I'm amazed they have the jobs they do, because to be frank, some of them are plain dumb, almost as if they didn't even interview to get the job they were contracted on for.

Eventually there will be an equalling out, but it won't be anytime soon.

There wont be much equaling out. It is what it is. I pulled a board from a 4000 series router I had at home a couple of years ago and it said something that made me smile, but also feel a bit sad as well... 'Made in the USA'. Again, for all the local issues people have with working with the changes, issues that make people think why the hell did they do this, it still makes a great pie chart for the executives. If the savings are there, or felt to be there, almost any amount of operational pain will be obfuscated. A lot of people who did the hacking to build where we are are today have either left the industry entirely or repositioned themselves into jobs that people are finding increasingly difficult to move into because there are too many people holding those roles down who are not moving. This is why I advocate people get a couple of years of support experience in and then push on into design or management tracks. Some of the younger people have a shot at design but you must think less about infrastructure and more about application. 5 years hence many companies will be reducing their infrastructure and support grunt to a blip. Social media has been derided in one thread by the email hippies. Our company is already moving to tweeting. Others will follow because it is driven by ambitious young executives who are either app savvy or think they are and CIO dinosaurs who are hanging on and want to be hip. That's one example, there are others. They will need smart techs to get them there.

Turgon

millworx wrote: »

I'm amazed they have the jobs they do, because to be frank, some of them are plain dumb, almost as if they didn't even interview to get the job they were contracted on for.

That's most likely because they didn't interview for the job they were contracted on for. Huge companies sign a massive deals with major offshore contract shops. That shop then sends along it's people. Typically they send good people in the beginning, then once things are going well they pull the good ones out and send them to a new customer, replacing them with less capable people. Much grumbling on the shop floor but most people keep their heads down. It doesn't pay to kick back against a corporate decision if you want to get on in a big company.

networker050184

A lot of doom and gloom in this thread. At the end of the day there will always be a need for smart, motivated technical people. Will that necessarily be supporting Windows or Cisco on some help desk? Probably not, but if you are not constantly upgrading your skill set offshoring is the least of your worries.

Turgon

networker050184 wrote: »

A lot of doom and gloom in this thread. At the end of the day there will always be a need for smart, motivated technical people. Will that necessarily be supporting Windows or Cisco on some help desk? Probably not, but if you are not constantly upgrading your skill set offshoring is the least of your worries.

That's the ticket. Some lateral thinking as opposed to the path well trodden I think. That path got worn out about 2004.

shodown

networker050184 wrote: »

All the reasons everyone listed is why I much prefer to work for a service provider rather than in house IT for a company. The network is the business.

+1 thats why I have never have or never will work inhouse IT.

thomas130

thomas130 wrote: »

Hi guys

The last six months this has been bothering me on whether or fact there is a future in IT in places like the Uk. I have been in IT for around 4 years and building quite of list of experience and skills for example hardware, servers, Linux, networking and now starting getting involved in programming.

Don't get me wrong I love IT but I am worry that might not be great future as I know a lot of jobs are getting exported where it is much cheaper. I know you always need people to look after stuff physically. But will these jobs be hard to find and crap pay.

Just wondering what thoughts you have from people that have been in this industry longer than me.

Thanks
Tom

Hey guys thank you all your post for far. I didn’t expect this thread to become this big, but it's been very interesting to hear everyone views anyway.

I come up with a 2 years plan (I Should be ok in my job for that long to cover all these new areas I should be looking at for my future career in IT)

I will be doing a development project that will have to involve me learning a lot of Itil practices etc ( I learn best when I have to learn something for a reason) and databases as well has cover the major programming languages and will involve me, having to learn more in depth knowledge of networking protocols etc than I already know.

I think this will be good plan for the next two years so I can have a decent future in my career. I just don't think it's a good idea just to become another technician I am considered very good by everyone I work with. But while I’m young and still new to IT I think it's a good idea well grounded in nearly all areas and then specialist.

I don't know about the rest of you but I noticed allot of jobs these that want an ICT Support Technician and developer for the same role.

bertieb

networker050184 wrote: »

A lot of doom and gloom in this thread.

What did you expect? Its early in the week, everyone is miserable from being back in work from the weekend and we're all running about filling in the end of month pie-charts/reports/updates for the execs

Turgon

bertieb wrote: »

What did you expect? Its early in the week, everyone is miserable from being back in work from the weekend and we're all running about filling in the end of month pie-charts/reports/updates for the execs

Or answering endless questions from project managers or filling in their spreadsheets when we have real work to

Timberwolf5578

chrisone wrote: »

Technology is the future of all man kind. All area of careers will involve technology and I.T.

From farming to space explorations, I.T. and technical engineering will be at the forefront of everything. The food you eat involves I.T. the farmers tools will need some sort of technical I.T. related expert.

I.T. is a very broad term involving 100s of technicalities involving 1,000's of area of commerce.

WAR, AUTOMOBILE, FOOD, SECURITY, PHYSICAL SECURITY, EMERGENCY SERVICES, WATER SERVICES, CONSTRUCTION, BIOLOGICAL, EDUCATION, ECONOMIC, GOVERNMENTAL, pretty much everything that needs to evolve for the better will involve some form of technology and as along as technology is behind such evolution there has to be I.T. to administer it.

Very true, and good post!

All these pessimistic theories (i.e., that developed countries' I.T. jobs will eventually all be outsourced to developing countries) are utter nonsense. There will be outsourcing, yes, but everything can't be outsourced. That's common sense.

Both developed countries and developing countries will require a huge amount of I.T. professionals in the future.

I.T. is the future!