Questions aimed at those who have gone to Britain for work and stayed there:

How easy is it to find a job in the UK, when you have a Computer Enginnering degree? How strong is the competition in the IT labour market? Are there unfilled positions in the market? What about the salaries?
And what kind of difference does it make if you hold an MBA and you are looking for a management position?
In any case assume that I have 2 years work experience.

First of all, what is your citizenship. That can make an enormous difference.

I'm sorry I forgot the basic. But that's not a problem. I am an EU citizen, Greece.

You should have no problems. Just buy a cheap ticket over there, and apply for jobs. You could even do it from the net via job search sites (just make sure you can fly over on short notice)

There are plenty of IT jobs now, mostly of cause in London, but other cities up north have a few as well.

Rates differ between London and the rest of the U.K. with obviously more money being paid in London, but add to that more expenisve living conditions.

With basic qualifications and a couple years experience, you should be able to pull off around €50,000 a year, obviously far more, the more you are qualified, and the more specilized your position is. (A CCIE for instance should pull at least €100,000 a year, and often much more)

You have the obvious English skills, and if you can sell yourself then you will have no problems.

One thing to try and include in your position is a full transfer from Greece (relocation package). The company should pay all transport costs, including your airfare, and shipping costs of your personal belongings. This is standard in the I.T. industry.

Once you arrive in Britain, because it's not part of the Schengen pact, you will have to register yourself in the country. This is very easy and straight forward. You will also need to inform them you have a job when one comes.

Hope this helps.

Oh, and in London, many of the I.T places can be found in Docklands. Great place to work as well.

Τhank you for the responses Justme. London's higher cost of living is in par with the salaries or it's still better to live out of it, let's say in Scotland because of the lower cost of living? I think that this connection between salaries and cost of living is called purchasing power parity...

That's a difficult one. You would have to ask IT people who have worked in both London and elsewhere.

You could save a certain amount of money by working in London, but living in the metro area, however, the commutes won't be cheap either.

I think people who have lived there should know. I'm asking that, because there is a possibillity that, in the beginning at least of my life there I will face some kind of economic problems. Very small budget you see....
You mentioned a CCIE above... I haven't heard of it. Is it a qualification?

CCIE is a Cisco qualification. There are various different ones, starting from CCNA, CCNP... to CCIE which is the high end. (you need to pass a 16hour exam for the CCIE)

In Britain though, experience works in your favour. You may not have a lot of qualifications but can still do all right if you have the experience and references.

I see. I knew about Cisco qualifications, but I've only heard about CCNA and CCNP. I'm surprised though, that this kind of qualifications are so rewarding in the market...

CCIE is very hard to get. If you can pull it off, you should be paid well for it. But IT is a very well paid market, and good CCIE's really know their shit.

You are in Frankfurt, aren't you? How is IT over there?

If you have an average degree and no experiance you may have problems. If you have experiance you are proably ok. Unfortunately I fall into the former.

It's not at it's best at the moment. I was lucky to be hired during the IT boom, so I have it quite sweet, but after that there was a period of a couple of years with massive layoffs, lower wages and hardly any jobs.

That said, things are picking up but it's still a way to go.

Completely different in London right now. They have gone through the IT bust and out the other end, I won't go as far as saying things are booming again, but they have certainly gone back up. The wages have risen again, and there is now no problems finding jobs.

I would personally consider London first if I were you, but that depends if you like that city. It can be a little too much for many people.

If you have an average degree and no experiance you may have problems. If you have experiance you are proably ok. Unfortunately I fall into the former.

Agree, experience counts in Britain, and even more so in IT. There are plenty of jobs available if you have experience.

actually, Justme, what do you reckon I should do. I have a 2:2 in computer science (which is practically worthless - but is from a top 10 uni) and only a summer placement in a small publishing company as generel IT dude - doing a bit of everything.

Any great ideas as to what I can do to get a job? Most places want a 2:1 for a graduate scheme or experiance.

Englishman, if you make that British way of marking students (2:1, 2:2,....) out of ten what your 2:2 would be like? A 6 out of 10?

Also I don't think that the name of the uni matters so much, as your knowledge does.

actually, Justme, what do you reckon I should do. I have a 2:2 in computer science (which is practically worthless - but is from a top 10 uni) and only a summer placement in a small publishing company as generel IT dude - doing a bit of everything.

Any great ideas as to what I can do to get a job? Most places want a 2:1 for a graduate scheme or experiance.

Depends on how much you "know" about IT. If you got it in your head, go for an average job in another company, a larger one, as an assistant even. If you are any good, you will be able to move your way up.

What company's want to see is initiative, and you gotta be a salesman. You have to be able to sell yourself. There are loads of jobs out there and they plaster all sorts of qualifications around. But if you turn up and can show that you can do the job, you stand a good chance even if you are not qualified. It also looks good that you are trying to improve your current standing and position.

Grab a CCNA book (about €40 including a CD which has the labs) and get your CCNA. A great start, and companies really like people who went for such exams on their own, as almost all applicants in training courses are sent their and paid by companies.

A self taught CCNA plus your Uni degree, experience, and if you really know how to work a network, with the right attitude at at interview you should find another job without hassle.

Justme, is the CCNA course in one book? I used to think that it was separated in several books! Or that was about CCNP and CCIE?

Englishman, if you make that British way of marking students (2:1, 2:2,....) out of ten what your 2:2 would be like? A 6 out of 10?

You have in order

1st (best)
2:1
2:2
3rd
pass
fail (worst as you didn't get the degree)

2:1 and 2:2 are most common as any less and you will have probably dropped out allready. It is further complicted as some degrees are "honours" degrees, whilst others aren't. I don't know what the difference is but mine was with honours. Possibly you have to do a project.

probably works out as 5.6 out of 10. I can't be sure.

OK, a 5.6 out of 10 is not the best of the bunch, but I believe that the grade is not the only (or the most important) aspect of your image as an employee. You can always go for a MSc if you want another degree to distract employers from the Bachelor's grade.

Justme, is the CCNA course in one book? I used to think that it was separated in several books! Or that was about CCNP and CCIE?

The CCNA is constantly changing. At the moment, you can get what you need in one book (check ISBN 0-07-222934-9 for a good one).

There are two exams to pass the CCNA. An intro, and a final. Don't think the intro is basic, it rams you with heavy protocol detail questions, subnetting, etc and although not terribly hard, it's not something you can pass without brushing up (they may hit you with questions like how many meters limitation is a 1000BaseSX or what OSI layer does EIA/TIA-530 work at, or what is a Lens/Etype tag in a 802.1Q Frame for). The 2nd exam is more for actually configuring a router and switch. You have to remember exact syntax, do a couple of labs, and be able (without syntax errors) set up Vlans, Access Lists, fix network problems etc. And you have to be able to do this on both a 1900 & 2950 switch (which can vary dramatically on commands)

You can opt to do both exams at the same time in a unified (longer) exam.

Cisco are niser than Microsoft, they give you a score and some hints on what area's you were good or bad at, but you need at least 85% to pass. Microsoft just give a pass or fail on their exams, so if you fail, you never know if you were close at 79% (about 80% pass mark required) or 50%, and you don't know what area's you should revise on.

By the way, you should also go for at least an MCP.

Understood. I'm interested in Cisco's certifications and maybe I will give it a try.

OK, a 5.6 out of 10 is not the best of the bunch, but I believe that the grade is not the only (or the most important) aspect of your image as an employee. You can always go for a MSc if you want another degree to distract employers from the Bachelor's grade.
Bare in mind to get a 1st you only need 70% (7/10) this is at my uni by the way.

40% - 50% a 3rd
50% - 60% a 2:2
60% - 70% a 2:1
70%+ a first

A surprising number of people drop out in the first year or resit a year or a few modules. And this is at one of the top places for computer science in the UK, where you need ABB at alevel including maths, so you have to be quite smart to get in. Each year I did 12 modules. I was on for a 2:1 at the end of my second year, but a bloody hard project involving progamming in python and C using neural nets (not written by me though) and image processing techniques to detect people in video footage (as apposed to cars or cats or other background noise) took up too much of my time and I got a lot of problems that dragged my grade down a lot.

Have toyed with getting an MSc, but not sure what to do it in. Would be tempted by something financial instead.

Have you ever thought the possibillity of going for an MBA? I'm thinking about it, but it's better to do it when you have some work experience (2-3 years). It can take you to jobs totally different to IT. A good example would be Human Resource Management or Marketing. Moreover, pure technical work (like IT) can really become disturbing after some time in it... Do you have an idea about the prospects of MBAs right now in Britain?

hmm, not sure really, I worked at a business school that offered MScs and MBAs but as MBAs aren't relevant to me I know little about them. My suspition is that they are very expensive and there is a lot of competition here, but then again there are a lot of compnaies in London that woudld recruit people with MBAs, possibly more than any other city in Europe. Carefull you don't end up over qualified I guess.

I sugggest looking at big company websites for their requirements and other job websites to see if there is demande for MBAs. No point doing them and it not helping you.

I don't have the experiance yet, i personally think the ideal situation is to get into a company and see if you can get them to give you some funding or something.

From time to time I've read surveys about MBAs demand from the market in UK. There was a harsh time after 2000 (you know, Nasdaq, IT downfall, etc). But now the market is becoming hot again. And salaries are always good as far as MBAs are concerned. A pretty good MBA in Britain would cost around 30,000 Euros - somewhere around 20000 GBP. From all the facts I've seen, it's a vary good qualification, recognisable and well paid (especially in London and other big cities). I am searching information about this subject these days.

You can look for more info in www.mbaworld.com