lifestyle changes

That's the key really - you have to determine what jobs can't be shipped out to India? Then pick one of those.

There are lots of business opportunities out there besides IT, but in most cases you need some capital. Maybe go contracting - there are plenty of J2EE contracts out there - live frugally as best you can, save your pennies, research your future business idea, then jump ship.

I realise the days of becoming moderately financially secure from 10 years of IT contracting is a lot harder than it was, but it's still possible to accrue enough funds to start your own alternative business.

My problem is that as my income grew, so did my family. I'm probably as badly off (in terms of cash in bank) as I was eight years ago, yet my income is probably five times what it was then.

 

yeah, there are still a few lotus jobs advertised...even in northern ireland...but hardly any MS jobs tho....this is making it very hard for me to move over there...eveb harder is the fact that the phone calls I have had wanted me to go over the next day, and I don't know how many people are applying for these roles either....sigh...

 

What about EIRE? I thought their IT market was still growing. Would the commute from NI to EIRE be too far?

 

ah, I haven't checked Eire...I guess parts of that would be too far to commute as I would be living at Whitehead...google are advertising lotsof jobs at Longford tho!

 

Been there, done that.

My J2EE skills are really not up to it to go contracting. The team I work on needed a web service written and it HAS to be J2EE and Websphere.

Even though our client wanted this done the company I worked for refused to train me and my colleague so in the end we dived in and did it off our own initiative.

The product went into prod 3 weeks ago and 3 other systems wish to use it so a great success and hell of a lot of hard work.

Sadly though I don't feel I'm really up to speed to go for another job in ut. Bearing in mind the two of us did this without training and giving up a lot of our time and having to bang our heads together (and against the nearest wall which is now crumbling) did the company I work for appreciate this or make use of these extra skills we have just put together - NOPE, so back to COBOL and loading data disks.

 

Seems we're still coming back to look at IT jobs, though this thread was to look at alternatives, what can the IT professional do "job wise" that has Zero to do with computers, what are the options? Surely we must have some skills that can be ported over to another profession, for example, training (read not Teaching!). I don't know but I'm fed up of staring at a computer screen all day there HAS to be more to life.

 

Lee my job might be up for grabs towards the end of the year. You get to play with big sound toys, lots of pretty lights ,make big bits of scenery appear and disapear as if by magic,and see some realy good shows (unfortunatley theres the bad shows as well) .The downside to some people are the unsociable hours,but then again 3 or 4 days off a week are nice

 

Plastering/Plumbing (building trade in general). I have a friend who has just done a plumbing course as he was made redundent from his last firm (IT Support) now he works three-four days a week, makes just as much money and the spends the rest of his week at the beach.

The demand for this type of work is growing in the UK (as well as europe) so much so I'm thinking about it myself.

Nic

 

Guys just remember to work to live, not live to work.I say that every time I have a bad day, pop a cork, and then chill out. It works honest

 

I'll drink to that!

 

I Joined one.

Got a broken nose

It was fun though, certainly got rid of all that pent up frustration and I got seriously fit. Trained 4 times a week. Ran to the club and back (about a mile each way). Frankly I had never felt so good. An old knee injury put me out of competition and the training become impossible, Now a fat bloke in front of a screen every night.

The music helps.

Alternative jobs?

Why not make your hobby your job. (don't set up a hifi forum, it doesn't pay). But you are capable in IT. Try using your skill to buy low and sell high. The advantage of the web is you can set up your own business in the evenings whilst using your day job to pay the bills. When the business is running jack in the day job.

 

Why think in terms of other "jobs"? Why not make a more planned transition using IT in the short term to fund a small business?

There are few "jobs" which really work in your favour, high paid jobs expect your soul, lower paid jobs virtually expect the same. Any job is intended to make more sense for the employer than for the employee. You'd be surprised what options are available to you if you think more entrepreneurially.

A friend of mine who works in the city is looking for an exit strategy. He was looking into buying into a car wash franchise, I think the buy in was £20K per site and the franchise required low administration beyond managing hiring, firing, payroll, working hours, etc.

The company locates and negotiates the sites, builds the car wash, naturally supplies branding and all materials. As a favour another pal ran an analysis on the company - he's the Director for European Investment at one of the biggest investment Banks and achieved his MBA at Harvard so we took his opinion seriously. The typical gross profits were demonstrated to be around the £70K-£90K per year per site.

There are lots of other examples of businesses which can turn a good profit as long as you have some capital - think £20K+.

Why downsize now with a job change when you could cling on a bit longer, gather some capital, setup a self-managed income stream, work fewer hours for more money and never be made redundant?