I am currently looking to change my career from administration/sales support to more of a web design after being made redundant from my last role after 8 years service.

 

I have recently started an introductory HTML/CSS course at Halesowen College with a view to taking this much further. I am thoroughly enjoying the course and very keen to gain some practical work experience in Web Design.

 

I would like to hear how I can get into such a role after spending a lot of time away from it.

 

Any ideas on courses, ideally courses where I can obtain a specific qualification would be very helpful indeed.

You're probably better off self-teaching yourself everything you need to know, picking up experience along the way by doing work for friends, family, charities etc.

 

Build up a decent portfolio and once you have that and the experience, you can look to start applying for some junior roles. If you want full-time employment, you can expect a starting salary of around £14k. Anyone who bandies figures in the 20s to you is talking nonsense, middle-weight designers get those salaries, people with 5/6 years experience.

 

Also just be aware of course it could take you several months, possibly a couple of years, to get good enough you can challenge other people for roles.

Many thanks for your help.

 

I think I'd prefer to study for a specific qualification as self-teaching myself is an option but may not best for me as I'm better around other people teaching the same thing rather than doing by myself.

 

I last did a web design role back in 1997 and since then the web has changed so much I have noticed this by the introductory course that I'm doing now.

 

If you know of any suitable courses that are specifically for web design or indeed graphics then please let me know.

 

Thanks again.

The general consensus is that good, up to date specifically web design/development higher education courses are very few and far between.

 

You could end up spending a lot of time and a huge amount of money and still having to start in a junior role on little more than what somebody earns on a checkout in Tesco.

 

By all means higher education is a good thing to do - just not specifically in web design/development.

Hi pbaker,

 

I've just been made redundant too, in November. I had the benefit of some experience, but like you that experience was old and needed updating. I've seen it said over and over again on these forums that web design courses are out of date and not very well taught. It is hard learning on your own but as mike says you are probably going to have to do that after the course anyway. If you really need to do a course then you will need to be prepared to move house to wherever the best course is.

 

I paid for a video training course in Joomla and now I'm starting my first website. I'm hoping to meet other web designers based in Manchester to get some face to face contact.

 

Good luck finding a course.

 

ben.

Hi Ben,

 

Thanks for your feedback.

 

When I did web design back in 1997 I was actually in an office junior position but was shown and trained up doing very basic HTML coding which I really enjoyed - a lot of work went into creating this website but the company struggled and the site never actually went live unfortunately.

 

Things have changed since then in terms of web development so rather than enter a new position in basic office administration (which quite frankly I've had enough of) I'm really looking to gain some sort of qualification and obviously a lot of commercial experience.

 

It would be great if I were to find another company similar to the one I worked for back in 1997 where I go in and pick up experience whilst working, this would be superb. I'm even willing to work voluntary in order to gain the experience needed.

 

After the course I'm looking to do a introductory course on flash which again sounds very interesting. I have no experience with flash but experience isn't required for this course.

 

The video training course you mentioned sounds like something Computeach do but I've heard completely different experiences with Computech which has put me off. I'm much better off learning with others around rather than on my own.

 

regards,

 

Paul

It sounds like you're after a placement. I think you will find competition for these types of jobs is very intense now to the point you will need to be able to do certain things before you can apply, and you will still need a stunning portfolio. And yeah, the initial starting salaries are quite low.

And yeah, the initial starting salaries are quite low.

 

Saying that it does divide the people who want to be designers from the people who just want a Middleweight / Senior Designer salary.

Hi Ben,

 

When you say low salaries what range are you talking about?

I don't know today's low salary but my first designer job I took a pay cut by 2k a year and I was working in a mailroom on a low salary beforehand. It's like most media professions, you want to work in TV? Then you gotta be a runner first getting peoples lunch for them. If you want to be a fashion photographer then chances are you need to be the one shunting the equipment and holding the light umbrella.

Most junior roles are between £12-16k.

Wow i wish my salary is like these.

I've had a quick look at some courses, but decided not worth the money. I've read some tutorials and bought myself a couple of books and once I've finished my CompTIA (hopefully in summer time-ish)I plan to spend more time on re-learning HTML/CSS and then move on to Javascript.

Wow i wish my salary is like these.

 

 

Whaddya mean?

Kyme is not from the uk.

kyme is from the Philippines. Metro Manila area (I'll go out on a limb and say probably Makati).

 

Am I close?

We are unfortunately at a point where there are nearly more people wanting to be web designers than there are customers for web sites and applications. In the world of development, web developers are valued under that of application developers by an average of £5k-£10k a year for a similar amount of experience.

 

As a technical trainer, I deliver a lot of training courses to aspiring web designers/developers. In my experience, if you don't want to "figure it out yourself" (using free or paid resources), then finding a decent local training provider is a good alternative. From experience, I am very wary of recommending part-time courses at "colleges" but there are a number of industry professionals who deliver courses with training companies who know what they're talking about and have up to date industry experience (I am currently revising my HTML5 course).

Self teaching is the way to go nowadays. That's what I did. Although it will be hard, the only way you will succeed is if you have the determination.

 

Countless times I have been coding a WordPress website and there has been browser issues, coding issues etc. But I think we all do it for the feeling of the client's approval and that nice reward at the end.

The course was 'joomla 1.6 essential training' on lynda.com. It only covers the very basics. I'm now going to have to learn how to modify templates.

 

Hi Ben,

 

Thanks for your feedback.

 

When I did web design back in 1997 I was actually in an office junior position but was shown and trained up doing very basic HTML coding which I really enjoyed - a lot of work went into creating this website but the company struggled and the site never actually went live unfortunately.

 

Things have changed since then in terms of web development so rather than enter a new position in basic office administration (which quite frankly I've had enough of) I'm really looking to gain some sort of qualification and obviously a lot of commercial experience.

 

It would be great if I were to find another company similar to the one I worked for back in 1997 where I go in and pick up experience whilst working, this would be superb. I'm even willing to work voluntary in order to gain the experience needed.

 

After the course I'm looking to do a introductory course on flash which again sounds very interesting. I have no experience with flash but experience isn't required for this course.

 

The video training course you mentioned sounds like something Computeach do but I've heard completely different experiences with Computech which has put me off. I'm much better off learning with others around rather than on my own.

 

regards,

 

Paul