Getting into an IT career?

I’ve always loved working with personal computers, repairing them, playing with them and so on. Recently I’ve started to really get sick of my office job (administration) and want to turn my hobby (which I love) into my career (to pay the rent).

Unfortunately my education and knowledge on this matter is very limited, I do not know what sort of standard qualifications are needed to say, become a PC repair man or (god forbid) tech support.

I have done an ECDL Course, which covers the VERY basics but want some form of qualification that employers will actually want to see.

Are they NVQs such as with plumbing or being an electrician? What sorts of pay do these kind of jobs offer? Any help at all will be, as always, massively appreciated.

 

A good place to start is with an A+ and MCP these are good industry recognised qualifications. once youve got those i would do and MCSE and a CCNA then your onto cash. Theres good money to be made in networking

 

Thanks for the good advice! but a few more questions, how much do you think these courses would roughly cost? and how long would they take to complete?

I'll be doing some more research when I get home, but once again thanks.

 

The lenght of the courses vary. I've just got the ISTQB via my work and that was a three day course for the foundation level, but the pracitioner is a 6 day course.

Then again, my degree took 3 years I guess.

 

Thanks for all the help Gooser, you've pointed me in exactly the sort of direction I wanted to go. Time to get doing some reasearch into courses now .

The future is looking bright.

 

The future's orange... sorry couldn't help myself.

 

Most employers (as irritating as it might be to get into the thing) are after experience. They've started to wise up to the fact that some qualifications don't mean squat, and others don't necessarily mean you're any good.

 

Yeah, I understand that, but qualification + voluntary experience = good job prospects surely?

 

Im going to follow this thread i think, ive left a counselling career, and been thinking of trying to get into IT. I have no IT qualifications or provable experience but am starting to look around at what i can do to move towards working in the IT industry, though everything is sooooooooooooo expensive both financialy and also timewise.

 

We seem to have this discussion on a fairly regular basis. Someone should write a sticky perhaps?

 

Found out that Learn Direct do the ICT A+ Qualification

http://catalogue.learndirect.co.uk/courses/100125IC081/

and at 70hrs total it seems like a partime job / training is a very possible option