Good paying jobs?

cardsguy

It's a degree in computer science that is most likely to yield a high salary very very soon after completion - if you're passionate about the stuff that is!

There are plenty of jobs (in London) paying in excess of £60-70k as a permanent employee for what amounts to glorified *nix systems administration - automating tasks with tools like Ansible / Puppet / Chef, managing cloud infrastructures (AWS, Azure) and a bit of scripting prowess. I have friends who are 27 earning in excess of £120k per year through contracting - the going rate for someone very good in systems / network administration is £400-600 per day depending on the skillset.

Working for Google, Facebook or Amazon means you will have a healthy base salary (over £60k), high performance-based bonus and stock options (potentially £40-50k vesting over four years) - and if you are very good this can be had just after finishing university, at 23!

xapprenticex

^ Sure its possible for the very few leaving the top 3 universities but i doubt its the reality for 99%. Most of my friends who did CS degree (as everyone does a CS degree nowadays) did not have it like that at all.

More like a year in retail before getting a decent job paying mid 20's.

motorguy

xapprenticex wrote: »

What about that guy on here recently who was banging his boss and got promoted to 50k?

£50K is not the pay of the truly exceptional, and besides that was all !!!!!!!!.

motorguy

cardsguy wrote: »

It's a degree in computer science that is most likely to yield a high salary very very soon after completion - if you're passionate about the stuff that is!

There are plenty of jobs (in London) paying in excess of £60-70k as a permanent employee for what amounts to glorified *nix systems administration - automating tasks with tools like Ansible / Puppet / Chef, managing cloud infrastructures (AWS, Azure) and a bit of scripting prowess. I have friends who are 27 earning in excess of £120k per year through contracting - the going rate for someone very good in systems / network administration is £400-600 per day depending on the skillset.

Working for Google, Facebook or Amazon means you will have a healthy base salary (over £60k), high performance-based bonus and stock options (potentially £40-50k vesting over four years) - and if you are very good this can be had just after finishing university, at 23!

I'm an IT contractor, and yes, thats the realms of day rates. I aim to work 45 weeks a year and so far have achieved that.

Being self employed / contractor though is different. To get £100K+ in a PAYE role only applies to the very few in any field and you'd have to be incredibly exceptional and have a lot of luck. I think young people today are brought up to believe they can do anything, when the reality is far from that.

Plus theres region to take in to account. £100K in London probably only gets you the lifestyle of £50K pa outside of the south of England.

motorguy

xapprenticex wrote: »

^ Sure its possible for the very few leaving the top 3 universities but i doubt its the reality for 99%. Most of my friends who did CS degree (as everyone does a CS degree nowadays) did not have it like that at all.

More like a year in retail before getting a decent job paying mid 20's.

+1

IT pays reasonably well but you're not by default going to end up on £100K pa.

cardsguy

xapprenticex wrote: »

^ Sure its possible for the very few leaving the top 3 universities but i doubt its the reality for 99%. Most of my friends who did CS degree (as everyone does a CS degree nowadays) did not have it like that at all.

From my experience that is not completely true - being part of a top 3 university is not a criteria that assures a good career in IT.

I studied in Eastern Europe (where we get 100% free tuition btw) and I personally know at least 20 former colleagues from a class of 300 (actually only 165 graduated) who work for a top technology company in Zurich, London or California - Google, Facebook, Bloomberg, Palantir Technologies, or in HFT firms. The standout feature is that instead of retail jobs during/after uni, they pursued summer internships for said companies, or at least technology related roles in relevant fields. This was actually a requirement of our curriculum and counted towards the final grade.

I have noticed that traditionally IT roles do not truly need a CS-trained background - the software development skills you gain were not of real use in the past but I think that right now the lines are getting blurred and they are becoming more and more relevant.

Andrew_Ryan_89

I thought engineering was the high paying job? I know someone who contracts and earns £500 a day!

savingpennies

A degree is a degree and opens the doors to lots of different careers but don't expect to walk straight into a high paying job. We seem to be living in a time when there are lots of graduates with 2.1's and above but not a lot of graduate type jobs. OH and I graduated in 82/83 and both walked into jobs after 1st interview but it is much more difficult to do that now.

DD1 graduated three years ago and has never been
unemployed but she is in a minimum wage job as a hotel receptionist/finance clerk. Most of her friends from school (also graduates) in similarly paid jobs. The only ones who got graduate jobs were ... one lad with an engineering degree and the other with an IT degree.

Another girl I taught got a first in law, won her university prize for best law student in her final year, but three years later is still struggling to find a firm that will take her on to do her articles to become a fully fledged solicitor. She's been working as a paralegal since graduating. The cutting back of legal aid has meant there are few opportunities in law.
Get a good degree, 2.1 or above, look to do internships/jobs during the summer holidays, do your research on the type of job you think you would enjoy and finally, I genuinely wish you the best of luck in today's job market.

paddyrg

xapprenticex wrote: »

What about that guy on here recently who was banging his boss and got promoted to 50k?

As I recall, it was £50k OTE (ie opportunity to earn - ie don't earn, but get commissions and the best sales staff *might* get close)

xapprenticex

paddyrg wrote: »

As I recall, it was £50k OTE (ie opportunity to earn - ie don't earn, but get commissions and the best sales staff *might* get close)

ahh i see.....