[Gllug] Working with Linux in the UK.

[Martyn Drake]

Hi,

Apologies if I'm going to be boring everybody with this...

It's a tough market in London at the moment.  I've applied to about 5
jobs all in all that specifically dealt with Linux.  The majority of
stuff that has been passed to me from recruitment agencies has been
Solaris, Solaris and Solaris.  It's amazing when a firm interviews a
non-agency person and you find that they've got the job even though
feedback has been extremely positive.  

I've only just started working for a company with mixed Linux/NT servers
after a three month stint on the unemployment line (was made redundant
before I got married and went on honeymoon - that's how bad the market
was or still is), but there is an opportunity happening later this month
(funnily enough in Soho and the immediately surrounding area which is
where all of those previous 5 interviews took place) that's extremely
exciting (and would probably involve a bit of bleeding edge Linux stuff
- at least I hope it does) and I hope that I stand *some* chance of
winning the place.  I can't name names here, but there is at least
somebody here on this list that already works for them ;)

The biggest problem for me is that my salary has also dropped.  When I
was at my peak, I was earning between £28,000 and £35,000 and now I'm
forced to work towards the lower end of £20,000-£30,000.  When I was
first working and setting up an ISP in the Norwich area I was earning
less than £9,000 (which I suppose for Norwich is okay - I could live off
of it give the mortgage that I had, and the cost of living in that area,
and so on).  For that I was the systems administrator, the technical
support chappie, the developer and web designer, and everything else on
top of that. 

Given the job market at the moment, I feel like I'm back at square one.

I hear that East Anglia is quite a good place for the Linux professional
at the moment, as is Cambridge.  

Regards,

	Martyn

-- 
Web     : http://www.drake.org.uk
Web     : http://www.martyn-drake.info
Web     : http://www.alug.org.uk


-----Original Message-----
From: gllug-admin at linux.co.uk [mailto:gllug-admin at linux.co.uk] On Behalf
Of William Palfreman
Sent: 06 January 2002 20:16
To: gllug at linux.co.uk
Subject: Re: [Gllug] Working with Linux in the UK.

On Sun, 6 Jan 2002, Gordon Joly wrote:

> http://www.it.jobserve.com/jobserve/homepage.asp
>
> and came up with....
>
> "Linux" and "London" - 85 jobs
> "Linux" - 282 jobs
>
> Hence, proportionally (on the basis of population, assuming one fifth
> to one quarter of the UK population live in Greater London), I would
> suggest that the spread across the country is the same. That is the
> density of Linux jobs in the same in London as anywhere else.

They may well be evenly spread - I personally suspect there are more
Linux
jobs per head in London (particularly Soho/West end, the City and the
Docklands) then anywhere else in the UK.  The point is there are
typically
some very experienced people chasing those 85 jobs, whereas outside
London
being able to read a zone file and install a kernel upgrade is
respected,
say with 1 years comercial experience or "I used it a lot at college".
Totally different world.  When I was applying for jobs in London I found
it very hard even getting as far as a telephone interview.

> Interesting result. Anybody go any real data on this?
>
> Gordo
>
> P.S. http://www.it.jobserve.com/ runs IIS:-)

Don't care :-)  Not my problem at all.  What matters is the wide range
of
"real" jobs (i.e. not there simply for CV-harvesting purposes) and the
close links with recruitment agenies who actually call you back and put
real effort into fixing you up.

Regards,
Bill.

-- 
William Palfreman


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