I don't like the way some training companies advertise expected IT job salaries on their adverts and on their websites. This gives the uninitiated the impression that the training on offer could after completion give them similar income levels. In reality, the training alone will not justify the so called expected salaries.
Some of the salaries I've seen quoted are on the high side and seem to indicate a lack of knowledge by the training companies on what the real IT jobs market will bear. Then again, I don't think these companies really care about being honest, as long as people keep enrolling onto their courses, so who cares if they inflate the salaries?
Well I care, as I find it annoying when people take advantage of other people and this is exactly what some of these training companies are doing.
None of the salaries on offer take into account the competition with other candidates for the IT jobs being advertised. Competition from candidates who may have completed the same types of training programs, or who may have actual job experience, gained working in a IT role before or may be the super skilled, very experienced candidates in the IT world.
Competing with others for IT jobs makes it difficult to ultimately get the right job, believe me, even with my levels of experience, including 15 years actual work experience, even I sometimes lose out to much more experienced and capable candidates.
I'm at the top of my field, so how does someone just starting out compete? It's something you need to get accustomed to, appreciating how to sell your skills to prospective employers, so you stand out from the competition. I will write more articles in due course which could help you hone your ability to sell your ability.
What are the real salaries? To find out what the real salaries on offer are, I suggest looking at several IT job boards to get a rough idea what a particular role pays and how much knowledge as well as experience is required for the role. To find a job board, just do a search for, IT job boards, on a search engine.
You could also try the following job boards,
These job boards should give you some appreciation of the salary a particular role is paying. So a search in one of these job boards for 'MCSE systems engineer' will bring up the relevant jobs available.
You may notice too, there are different type of jobs, that is, those that come with a salary with additional benefits and those which come with a hourly/daily rate. Whilst the former is the traditional job with a company, where there's an annual salary and perks, the latter is known as contract jobs.
The contract jobs are for a defined period, say 3 months and the person doing this job, the contractor gets paid a hourly or daily rate. They typical use a company to invoice the agent or employer for the number of hours or days they've completed each week or month.
Their company then gets paid and they in turn pay themselves. It's a sort of mini business, providing technical consulting services to the end customer, that is, the company paying for the technical services.
The job board websites can provide a good indication of the rates on offer for particular IT roles, so a search for 'MCSE System Engineer' for contract jobs will bring up the rates on offer.
Generally the rates for contract jobs are much higher than for salaried jobs, for example a Solutions Architect role which may pay £50,000 a year as a salaried member of staff, could pay treble as a contractor.