Working in Information Technology

Business Sectors

Source: Target IT 2006, GTI Publishing

Author: Simon Dring, Principal consultant, PA Consulting Group.

Organisations sometimes need to bring in experts who have technology and business expertise to help them solve an IT problem or to gain a different viewpoint on how they can use technology to run their business more effectively. That's where technology consultants come in. Technology consultants provide teams or individuals skilled in different areas of technology and with an understanding of business processes to help client organisations get the best from their IT systems or to gain cost benefits and efficient delivery of new information systems.

Technical consultancies perform a gamut of technical activities - from software development to risk management - and work with organisations in a wide range of sectors, including retail, finance, engineering and the government. Consulting projects can therefore be incredibly varied and rang from validating and outsourcing proposition for a big insurance company to delivering a web portal for local government.

New developments

A current trend id for organisations to outsource or offshore work, where skills and services can be purchased from other companies in countries like India where kill standards are high, but labour costs are low.

Technology consultancies are also increasingly harnessing the technical ability of overseas firms for some development work and this has resulted in the building of offshore partnerships. In recent years it has been important for consultancies to open up new markets through being innovators of technology - this is achieved through identifying business trends and looking ahead to what clients will need next. 'Sexy' technology areas include wireless technology, and RFID ( radio frequency and identification) tags for supply chain management.

Biometric data and security are growing areas of interest with the possible introduction of high-tech cards within the UK.

Skills required

 Graduates need to be capable of learning quickly and have a good technology grounding, without being too 'techie' Consultants need to be able to talk to clients in appropriate language without baffling them with jargon. Rather than knowing the very latest programming languages, we're keen to see how candidates have worked on or completed a project.

Ambition and enthusiasm, as well as good team working and excellent interpersonal and communications skills. The technical consultant's lifestyle can involve a lot of hard work and working at different client sites so flexibility is important for this are of work.

Starting out

Most companies have a graduate programme that includes training in business skills and technology to bring graduates up to speed.

Graduates then join a project team and get involved in projects so that they can build up their skills and experience - this may be part of a programming team or assisting with research of a client's requirements. As experience and expertise is gained, the typical route is to move up to team leading and then on to project management.

• Working in a team and delivering solutions to clients' problems.
• The pay is pretty good and the variety of work is excellent.
• Opportunity for travel can be attractive.
• You get to work with high calibre, bright people.

Worst

• Staying in hotels can be a grind.
• Hours can be long and disruptive to your social life.
• It's frustrating when you know the right answer to a problem but you can't get your client to understand.

Don't bother if...

...you're only interested in the technology and don't want to talk to business.

Information Systems,

Software Engineering,

Computer Studies,

Multimedia Systems,

Information Technology and Multimedia Computing

All of our undergraduate degree programmes are designed to endow the student with the good analytical skills required for working in this sector. The school has a history of research in leading-edge technology so, naturally, our expertise learned in these areas filter into the content of our degrees. The schools' Networked Appliances Lab , for example, allows our researchers to investigate the possibilities of wireless and RFID devices in the 'Home of the Future'

The school is also heavily involved in IT consultancy activities with local companies using our Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) and enterprise initiatives.