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I work in IT. If there is one thing I would say at a careers class in a school it would be. Get a trade. If you want to earn good money, probably work for youself(i.e. no boss to answer to) and live a comfortable life then Plumbing, Joinery, Building and Electrician is where you should be.

Whilst IT can pay good money if you skillset is 'in vogue' there are a heck of a lot of sys admins eaning less than 20K. Web monkeys unless they are VERY highly skilled in whatever bleeding edge is around at the time are also poorly paid. With the rise of third world countries emerging into the IT arena jobs in the UK are vanishing. I have just spent 6 months having to train a lad from the Phillipines how to do my job. He earns 10% of what I do. He works 10 hours a week more than I do. India has already taken most of the call centre work. Thailand, the Phillipines, Vietnam and most of all China are starting to make big noises in the IT industry. There will always be a need for some people in the UK who understand western processes to design the solution but the build work is fast moving offshore. This is a trend I see every day. I was stopped from doing a piece of work last week and was asked to send it offshore to our colleagues in Manilla. In order to try and keep some form of career I am having to retrain myself so I can be spread across multiple components within our organisation. Whereas 5 years ago my Java skills alone would have been enough now I am Java(J2EE), WebSphere Application Server, Websphere MQ , WBIMB and LDAP skilled. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy learning new skills, but this is a must do or I'm out on my ear type of situation.

Ian