Where's the money? (School cutbacks)

[CapnPugwash]

Happy new year!

 

I can see the future getting pretty tight for ICT support staff. Schools are having their budgets slashed & looking for any way they can make a saving. Either by having one person do the work of many, not paying the going rate for a job or just farming out the services to an external company.

 

So now might be a good time for getting out... but where's the money in ICT these days? What are the skills that are most sought after?

 

Anyone thinking similar? Got a plan? Care to share it?

Edited January 16, 2017 by elsiegee40

[TechieWils]

My plan was get out of education. After 8 years working up to NM. The politics, rubbish pay, expectations, holiday only in school closures but all big jobs been done then, red tape, no training, no recognition and just generally making me bitter.

 

I looked at job agencies (Applause IT) got me an interview doing what I am now but in the private sector and I start end of Jan. Couple grand pay rise with a couple extra after probation.

 

The skills I saw while looking were server management, sql, java and the other programming languages. And a lot of what you probably do now to be fair.

 

Just don't lose hope and keep looking something will come up.

[mrcrazy04]

There's quite a bit of money in IT security. The main areas are penetration testing, digital forensics and incident response, as well as security research.

After 4-5 years I'd say salaries of £50k plus are achievable as a techy; however it's not for everyone. With penetration testing and incident response there can be quite a lot of traveling, and digital forensics can involve viewing inappropriate images as part of investigations.

Most consultancies will take you on as a trainee if you have some IT experience and can demonstrate a security mindset (i.e. thinking like a hacker). Having a play on the capture the flag websites (such as hackthissite.org) can be a good way to get some basic experience :-).

[Lonix]

Unsure really, I enjoy working in education due to the fact our day to day job is never the same. We develop along with the School/IT and I prefer being able to see those I fix problems for.

Although I could do a long list of reasons not to work in a School, I can also create a long list on why I love it.

 

I've always agreed on these budgets being squeezed due to the amount of new innovative ideas sorry I mean money wasted by Schools. It's all about smart management in my view including from us IT support staff. When you see a lot of money being wasted with zero evaluation... or buying certain equipment for preference instead of heavily tendering for best prices/practical usage....

 

Simply not shocked at the cuts hitting education.

 

Unless it really became dire or a perfect job came along I'd happily continue to work where I am.

[jimmy_2k]

Its one of the few IT jobs where you are guaranteed the Christmas holidays and you aren't expected to be on call or work though your lunch breaks. Some schools are busier than others to be fair and I have been in both types. It depends what you want from your job really. As Network Manager you get to do a little bit of everything, I have upgraded our infrastructure and even redesigned most of the IT classrooms with the site team. I have previously worked in a server team doing only server work and not really seeing many others so it is good to have the variety. Others may prefer more technically challenging roles, it depends on what you want from your career.

[Blue_Cookeh]

As someone who had/has jobs in the private sector, with education only being part time my 2c is this:

 

I can't see educational IT jobs ever being particularly good. Schools don't pay enough for the skills they're asking for. You're expected to be an all round jack-of-all-trades IT person on not much more money than minimum wage in some cases. I enjoy having the flexibility and responsibility of driving IT in a small school but on the other hand, I need to eat and fund a lifestyle! As time goes on schools are no longer term-time operations and your responsibility is far more than just a couple of IT suites. Suddenly a school's network is now supporting BYOD, IT suites, 24/7/365 working from home and any other new fangled initiatives that come our way, much like a professional business without the money to support the staff or infrastructure.

 

Going into the private sector (think large business) you'll be highly specialised on a specific team for (example) Active Directory, Application Support, Networks, Security, Desktop support, VPN etc but you can expect a hell of a lot more money for what you do, with better pensions and benefits. You'll end up with less holiday and (potentially) more stress and/or office politics but at the end of the day I find it a lot more worthwhile and rewarding than working in education. Find a good employer that will look after you and your professional development and you'll be sitting on a gold mine.

 

That said, if you really want to future-proof yourself you should be looking at fully automated infrastructure. Think using something like Ansible to build a fleet of Linux servers with no input, or using Puppet to configure a boat load of Cisco IOS devices in one go. It's all going 'DevOps'-ey... I hate that term.

Edited January 3, 2017 by Blue_Cookeh

[rob101]

Been thinking about the same things recently as well, the problem i have with education is that you dont tend to be a specialist in any area but more ok at lots of things in lots of areas, that makes going to industry both daunting and hard due to most company's looking for someone as blue pointed out above who is a expert in a one or two areas.

 

I need to pick a area to specialise in and pay for training to get there but its hard knowing which direction to pick.

[SJA]

A very relevant thread for me right now.

 

Does anyone feel the pension is something that draws them towards staying in education? I fully understand that if you're really unhappy then the pension can be seen as a trivial issue.

[Achandler]

There probably won't be a pension by the time a lot of us get there! Your money today gets used to support todays pensioners, pension schemes (especially government ones) change at the will of the paymasters, are raided for funds when they need extra cash and are in a surplus, then we are all told how the same pension scheme is making everything worse for everyone and in now unaffordable.

 

I'm of the personal belief that the new fandango of enforced "saving" for retirement is a farce as well, making people opt out every year if they don't want to save. If the government really gives two hoots about the problem they would have not made promises that now cause us more issues (e.g we won't raise VAT, won't raise this tax etc but we will definitely raise pensions for people, going for the "grey vote"). Then suddenly realising ooooo, we have no money. They should just increase tax, not try and dress it up as some fantastic saving opportunity and make the state pension something you can live off.

 

All the above is assuming that the retirement age actually still exists in the future, you can retire with a pension pot that is empty, no savings and a house you could never afford to buy so still pay huge rent on! And despite being a remainer, the one real benefit I see is soon the government can't blame the EU for everything, although I predict a decade of it is just the readjustment after Brexit and it will be fantastic soon.

 

 

Apologies for going off topic, but seriously I think nowdays you are better off if you realisitically can, saving up and buying houses to rent out as a future pension pot. Pensions seem to be getting worse over time and not better, I can't see them being a huge draw in 5-10 years.

[RobD]

Pensions are incredably important but would you stick with a job that made you misserable for a lifetime just for the pension?? I'm in the private sector and have moved around quite a bit in the last 6 years and my pension has ranged from 3% to 6% employer pay in.

[mikeprice]

Personally I like working here - I get to do everything and not just fixed on server stuff and the people here appreciate what I do

 

like most jobs it totally depends on the people and the environment that you work in - I moved around for a while on short term contracts and the working environment (incl. people) varied a lot in schools - some were great once they got to know me and some had a general bad atmosphere and loads of politics driving the job priorities - which I hated

 

however - school don't pay well - I am lucky here and get paid more than I should (shhhh - don't tell the head!!) but that ain't normal!!

[zag]

You can earn a fair bit in private schools, around 40k for a NM role after a few years is pretty standard.

 

If you work in the public sector then definitely worth counting in the pension and time off in your thoughts. The pension is gold plated no matter what people say, compared to the private sector.

 

Roles outside of education such as testing, security, db admin, 3rd line support, sales and marketing are all very well paid, but you don't get the holidays. Worth thinking about anyway.

[mikeprice]

this may help - although I should say that our local MP seem to disagree with these figures

School Cuts

[6Foot2]

Ouch, looks like a fair few of us are getting bad news.Heard through the grapevine another local secondary school is getting the same news today as we got Friday. Drinks Job losses all around!

 

What I said:

 

We have been told that budgets are being cut across the board. The implication is that salaries are in the firing line. We are waiting for the bad news...

 

What I should have said/meant to say:

 

We have been told that budgets are being cut across the board. The implication is that support staff salaries are in the firing line. We are waiting for the bad news...

 

[Garacesh]

As is usually the case @DaveP

 

Teachers salaries are protected, AFAIK. I'm not 100% sure on what exactly that means, just that support staff salaries aren't protected.

[mikeprice]

Yes - teachers salaries are negotiated on a national basis by the Unions and The Government and can't be changed on a regional basis - although the Gov keeps trying to change that

 

All other staff are subject to anything the relevant authorities want to do

 

subject to industrial actions etc - but that is why teachers have protected salary - their Unions have a stronger voice and have managed to make things national so that any strike have a much larger impact (and gets on the News more)

[DanTheLacky]

As is usually the case @DaveP

 

Teachers salaries are protected, AFAIK. I'm not 100% sure on what exactly that means, just that support staff salaries aren't protected.

 

The people who make the decisions on salaries are or once was teachers I know If I had a choice to slash my own salary or the person next to me, that person would be going hungry before my family (not that most teachers wouldn't be able to afford to feed their children if they all took a pay cut of a grand or two).

[elsiegee40]

The people who make the decisions on salaries are or once was teachers I know If I had a choice to slash my own salary or the person next to me, that person would be going hungry before my family (not that most teachers wouldn't be able to afford to feed their children if they all took a pay cut of a grand or two).

 

The people making the decisions on pay are the governors (or Academy Directors) not teachers.

 

And yes we governors do turn down salary rises recommended by SLTs for teachers and support staff where we don't feel performance merits it. More likely to be refused for a teacher in my experience.

[Lonix]

The people making the decisions on pay are the governors (or Academy Directors) not teachers.

 

Interesting that, I keep hearing that from Governors even when I was one that was the "impression". Yet I know first hand that some Heads if they choose to give some one a pay rise it happens regardless if Governors authorise/like it or not. Two particular ones comes to mind who really did do as they saw fit. Then again probably per School basis where the Governors are actually in power where as some Schools I've been at Schools where they were mere political tools than in charge. As I said I've known a few heads that made pay rises occur and one even happened to me which I know was unplanned because of the reason behind it was very last minute. When a Head tells you "it's happening" you kind of get a strong impression they have more power and some of these moments were Pre Academy conversion as well. And those Heads were/are teachers.

 

I also know from first hand that leadership have a habit of using "governors" as excuses to hide behind. I've done it plenty of times, line managers have and when you get told it's a great excuse by leadership members.......

Edited January 17, 2017 by Lonix

[uffy2000]

Interesting that, I keep hearing that from Governors even when I was one that was the "impression". Yet I know first hand that some Heads if they choose to give some one a pay rise it happens regardless if Governors authorise/like it or not. Two particular ones comes to mind who really did do as they saw fit. Then again probably per School basis where the Governors are actually in power where as some Schools I've been at Schools where they were mere political tools than in charge. As I said I've known a few heads that made pay rises occur and one even happened to me which I know was unplanned because of the reason behind it was very last minute. When a Head tells you "it's happening" you kind of get a strong impression they have more power and some of these moments were Pre Academy conversion as well. And those Heads were/are teachers.

 

I also know from first hand that leadership have a habit of using "governors" as excuses to hide behind. I've done it plenty of times, line managers have and when you get told it's a great excuse by leadership members.......

 

I would agree, I am a NM in a school and I've already applied for a few positions in the private sector. My impression of governing bodys is that they get all their information via the Head so of course all the information they have is from the Heads perspective. My current head has employed the Chair of Governors in school as his business went bust.

 

Anyways back to the topic, I'm thinking of taking a pay cut and getting a lower Job I.e 2nd Line support or service desk team leader just to get out of education. At least in the private sector i could take holidays in school time and save on the cost of holidays alone. (like i got a chance for a holiday in a school )