How much do you earn?

Average UK salary for a developer is actually £45k (according to IT Jobs Watch) but it also depends heavily on what role you're doing (not all programmers are equal) and where you're doing it.

I was on £16k during my placement with a big multinational doing R&D programming, so the apprenticeship salary seems decent.

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Worth differentiating between London and not London. I see comparable jobs to mine but based outside London paying ~75% of what I'm on in London.

Thanks, I was just more worried than the apprenticeship scheme was paying very little. I thought that by doing the apprenticeship scheme, I'd be disadvantaged when going to find a job once it's finished. They sponsor your degree but from what I've heard it's a part time thing, you mainly work in the office for them but still occasionally go to lectures I think, I'm not too sure if it's a distance learning type of thing.

I dunno, I thought going to university the proper way might be more beneficial incase I want to switch job role in the future. For example if I wanted to be an Project Manager or work for a bigger company down the line (because apparently that's what lots of programmers do after certain years of experience) and I thought by doing an apprenticeship scheme like this I'd be limited to my choices. May I also mention that the degree from the sponsored apprenticeship program is a degree in Software Engineering, the same degree I applied for through UCAS.

This industry values practical experience and skill over qualifications. I came out of university with a first-class degree in Computer Science: nobody cared. Many of the more senior members of technical staff in my company (and others) do not have degrees at all.

A degree can't hurt but real industry experience is infinitely more valuable and the opportunity to get both at the same time and get paid is an absolute no-brainer.

Not having done a full-time degree will have no bearing at all on your potential to become a project manager.

You said that most of the seniors in your team don't have degrees, well long time ago ( around 5 months ), I was just searching on developer jobs cause I was curious, and I remember the top paying jobs asking for a degree (2:1 above) in Computer Science or relevant, so does that actually mean you MUST have a degree, could the senior people in your company apply and still get in due to the experience they have?

For entry level roles the degree acts like a filter to weed out the worse applicants, once you have a good few years experience and know what you're doing (and can demonstrate it) your degree no longer matters when job hunting.

So basically once you know what you're doing and have lots of experience, you can just ignore the part that talks about the degree and apply anyway and just make sure you display your experience and high level of competence?

If they ask for a particular degree then there's a good chance the role isn't all that senior anyway. Most job adverts I see don't mention degrees at all but that's especially true for the senior roles.

That's weird. To be a junior developer you need a degree but for a senior you don't necessarily need one. To my understanding you need to be a junior before a senior. So how can you be a senior without a degree if you need to have been a junior which doesn't necessarily requires a degree.

Or did I misunderstand your post?

Edit: loooool, since I started on this forum I always thought you name was "Totally Pissed", only now have I realized its the other way round.

That's weird. To be a junior developer you need a degree but for a senior you don't necessarily need one. To my understanding you need to be a junior before a senior. So how can you be a senior without a degree if you need to have been a junior which doesn't necessarily requires a degree.

Or did I misunderstand your post?

Edit: loooool, since I started on this forum I always thought you name was "Totally Pissed", only now have I realized its the other way round.

You need a degree for a junior position because you have no experience so the degree is the only thing that you can be judged on. Once you've got your few years experience from working in the real world and move up to a senior role no one cares what your degree was.

Some seniors will have a degree and they've risen up the 'normal' path, some seniors won't as they will have managed to get an entry level job without a degree and then have demonstrable experience that proves they're 'senior material'.


In short:
Juniors = Need degree
Seniors = Need (lots of ) experience

1. If you're old enough (think 20-30 years older than you) then you're of a generation where actually it was entirely normal to not go to university in the first place.

Or 2. Once you have some experience they simply don't care about your degree. I was applying for jobs at the end of last year with roughly two years relevant experience, I think only one of about six companies I dealt with even asked what my degree grade was (2:2, I left that part off my CV). It wasn't an issue at all.

Or 3. There are routes to getting experience (apprenticeships, self-teaching etc) that don't necessarily involve having a degree. It's not like those people can never progress despite experience because they didn't go to uni.

That 45k average sounds miles off I don't even think my manager gets that. 30k with a few years experience is more likely

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