Going back to uni to study computers

@ehren_fried_chicken - we're undergoing cost cutting measures where I work, despite being profitable still. I think all companies are cutting back, it's just that some need to more than others but the view from our senior management is that we need to get the business in shape now so that when consumer demand does pick up we'll be primed to prosper. We've got a voluntary resignation scheme launched today and there will be redundancies in the next 6 months or so.

I don't work in the financial sector but friends who do are very fearful of their jobs. Tech jobs outside of finance are seemingly increasingly rare in London these days. That may change now.

I am in the same industry and as the economic compression continues more and more IT will move to propierty systems. The services sector, banks & insurances above all want to reduce maintainance costs by having fewer system and less in-house coding. Experts for a major 3rd party vendor system are the niche to be in right now. My current client as much as most other places have already laid off 15% IT people.
Very good general developers are out there fighting for fewer jobs

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/contracts/city%20of%20london/.net.do (check the indexes at the bottom)

Tech jobs outside of finance are seemingly increasingly rare in London these days. That may change now.

Maybe I'm thick, but why may that change now?

EDIT: Now I get it, it's not that the jobs outside of finance are getting more plentiful, it's the jobs in finance that are getting less. :-(

FWIW I'm a Business Analyst, and it's a good role to be in right now. Solid demand and good transferable skills.

IMO datawarehousing is one area to look into - good specialists seem pretty thin on the ground.

Oh, and agile development sounds like a nightmare :)

really BA roles in other places get crunched in numbers. No that most do too much
business specification to begin with. I find the role often difficult to define, because which IT
guy can avoid understanding the data meaning in order to turn it into information ?

a lot of it depends on your skillset... VB programmers aren't worth squat for example and to an extent web developers unless you have some serious skills... (in finance anyways)

I'm working for a software house that deals in Listed Derivatives and we've just had a few redundancies, that might also in part be due to being taken over a while back.

A lot of development roles are now in 'centres of excellence' in India, Singapore etc as it's a lot cheaper to get 2-3 developers over there than 1 here... in terms of the balance sheet for now.

Software Engineering is fucking dull.

Totally agree there.

Currently writing pseudo-code for my dissertation. Along with creating Gantt Charts, Use Cases, A little tinie bit of Formal Methods.

I will seriously will look for another career path once I start work. I don't work the rest of my life sat in front of a PC. Luckily I have a diploma in traditional engineering so I could probably mix it up.

Conversely. Like everyone else has said, big things at the moment are...
[INDENT]

• Java/C# .NET - Byte code languages seems to be where all the jobs are. Everything seems to be C#.
  
• Data persistence i.e. Hibernate/NHibernate, Enterprise Object Framework and similar.
  
• Know SQL and understand Relational Databases. (in my placement year I became ridiculously good at SQL, No Database admin jobs in my area though :( ).
  
• Ajax.
  
• Web-services / Service Orientated Architecture.
  
• Aspect orientated Programming might be useful to know.
  
• Knowing your way around a Unix operating system won't hurt neither.
  
  

[/INDENT]Know at least one scripting language, be that perl/python/ruby/php.

Personally Learning OO principles, and learning the software development process will probably serve you better during the long run.

Oh yeah if I meet any women I tell them I am studying "Business" or "Sport Science".

I'm waiting until I'm not renewed then I'm going back to Oz to ride bikes in the sun and build nice wooden coffee tables. Fuck I.T.*

*I'm struggling with a sql mirroring/replication issue here. My view may be biased.

Nope, checked again, I.T. is still fuckled.

All our BAs are contractors and we bring them in/out with projects. its not consistant work but they do make the coin
in my time the only developers who have really made it have taken half decent development skills into an area where there are none, in less than a year they have earnt enough to take a year off.
if you have a good head for problem solving a good understanding of data and process flows through an organisation and know when to switch out the detail and when to push people you will dance it...

I'm waiting until I'm not renewed then I'm going back to Oz to ride bikes in the sun and build nice wooden coffee tables. Fuck I.T.*

*I'm struggling with a sql mirroring/replication issue here. My view may be biased.

Nope, checked again, I.T. is still fuckled.

I highly disagree, I am afraid.
I know everybody is pissed off with things not working in a computer and like to have a rant. But in general ?
come on ! IT's impact on life is remarkable. Of course it attracts people with social disorders hence the geeky nature of the stereotypical IT stimulus but seriously ?
Which industry is if not IT is shaping our society and behaviour at present ?
Former cutting edge industries have reduced themselves to formalism and repetitive retro-invention. And any true progress is ALWAYS based on the new tools IT is giving them.
We are truely living in groundbreaking times,
It is not often in history that a new media is born. printing, radio, TV & internet.

We as a shifting society have not even begun to come to terms with it.

I find it fascinating

^

I used to like mucking about on my BBC micro because it was fun. I like making electronics and fiddling with things. But pure software engineering IMO isn't much fun.

I like Maths and Applying it. Creating business applications doesn't interest me frankly and I don't wanna work the rest of my life sat in front of a computer.

Great if you like it, but today isn't the IT I knew and understood when I was a kid, that was less 16 years ago.

I used to experiment with my computers and the software i had.. for fun.
Working with them kills a lot of that inspiration off. I still get to muck about with them a bit but not enough (time is always short) and it's never tools that I used to find 'fun'. But that's probably due to me taking the easy employment options and not looking around.
I'm still here so I guess it can't be all bad! :)
If I didn't work with cool people though, I'd have been cycle touring my way somewhere else a long time ago..

^ Dead on my sentiments entirely.