Full Careers
Career prospects for 47 year old IT Analyst in the UK?
Ive been working in IT development for over 25 years, mainly on large mainframe based systems in the telecoms sector. I have progressed my career from programming to business analysis/design and have used structured methodologies. My company has recently announced a series of outsourcing plans and has an active redundancy policy. I am therefore wondering what my future employment prospects are. I am especially worried as I am the wrong side of 40. Does anyone know how active the UK IT employment scene is, especially in the south east?
Public Comments
- what part of the telecoms sector? some parts are still very boyant, some are quite slow.... where/how have you been looking?
- Substitute Teacher....i know, but if you get desperate. They basically would hire anyone to do that job.
- I'm a recruiter in the IT industry and in my experience, your age will only count against you if you're unrealistic about what salary you're asking for. The reason a 30-year-old is more likely to be hired than you is because they command a lower salary, yet at that age they've already accumulated some good experience (assuming they graduated at 21 or 22 and went straight to work). Don't sell yourself short either - you have good experience and deserve to be paid well - but be realistic about what you're asking for. Expect to get around the same as what you're currently on, not to get more. The other thing that will determine how successful you are in finding work is if you're willing and able to travel, and how flexible you are in what location you're based in. There's more work in the Reading/Bracknell/Slough areas than there is in other places, and yet most qualified candidates currently won't travel out of London, so if you're prepared to work in those locations then you should have more luck. One piece of advice I would give you is that, even though redundancy is a legitimate reason for losing your job, the longer you're out of work the harder it is to get back into work. It may be best to take any job, even if you're not sure that it's quite right, and remember you can still move on again. Don't be tempted to take, say, a month's holiday and then start looking for a job - you don't know how long it will take you to find one.
