Working in Information Technology

Business Sectors

Source: Target IT 2006, GTI Publishing

Author: Sheela Banham, Programme Manager, The Royal Bank of Scotland Group

Retail Banking organisations provide customers with a full range of banking and financial services to meet their needs, including current accounts, mortgages and insurance. These organisations reach customers (both business and the small business market ) through multiple channels including branch networks, 24/7 telephone baking, over the Internet and via automated teller machines (ATMs). Key players in this sector include high street banks, building societies and insurance companies. IT is essential to business for all of these.

Technology falls broadly into three main areas:

• Strategy - stimulating and visionary input into a business's future direction.

• Development - leading the advances and changes to IT systems.

• Support - keeping the show on the road for customers and internal business clients.

New developments

All institutions are continually upgrading their anti-fraud measures and recently you will have seen the introduction of 'chip & pin' credit and debit cards, where a PIN ( personal identification number) replaces a signature when a purchase is made, which provides much more security. Equally there are significant new legislative mandates affecting the sector, such as the Disability Discrimination Act and Consumer Credit Act that mean changes to IT systems. New products offering wider choice to customers are continuously developed - the offset mortgage has recently been introduced which allows customers to offset the debtor and creditor balances across a number of products for interest calculation.

Skills required

Many roles within IT require strong analytical and problem solving skills, so a computing or mathematical degree could provide an edge, but is not essential. Graduates from a wide range of disciplines are employed and they all receive training appropriate to their starting role. Nearly all IT projects involve teamwork, so the ability to collaborate with colleagues both in your own team and across multiple teams to achieve common goals is essential.

Continuous improvement is actively encouraged and so too is the desire to change the status quo. Clear and concise communication skills are a big advantage for both regular and day-to-day business interactions within It or other business areas, and for creating the expected project life cycle documents to a high standard.

Starting out

Graduates are normally recruited via a graduate programme and are typically assigned to a team on joining. Intensive training is given before you embark on project work. Development and support are typical areas where graduates start out. In a development area you could start out by enhancing current applications or be involved in writing new systems - driven by the requirements from the business and usually required yesterday!

• Receiving a thank you from your business for developing a fit-for-purpose system, to time and budget - and having fun while doing it.

Worst

• There is the ongoing challenge of managing time and budget versus scope of project - getting the requirements right is key. Go too slowly and the requirements become too complex - go too fast and you can end up with the wrong scope, reduced quality and increased cost of fixing problems.

Don't bother if...

...you're looking for a quiet and undemanding role - IT is stretching, you need the ability to keep 'lots of balls in the air'.

Business Mathematics,

Software Engineering,

Computer Forensics,

Computer Studies,

Information Systems,

Banking has traditionally provided the mainstay of employment possibilities for IT graduates in all disciplines. We regularly  update our courses  portfolio to keep abreast of new technological developments that are required for various business sectors. For example, our Computer Forensics programme has recently been added to address the security issues necessary for working in the Retail Banking sector.

The School also hosts an annual research conference on Advances in Computing and Software Forensics (ACSF) which is attended by both academics and practitioners working in this field.