average i.t support salary?

zweton

just wondering what the average wage is for i.t support,1 yrs exp and ccna?

zweton

anyone

JJJJNR

about 21k

washman3

23-25k.???

axer

I'd say 25k in dublin and 22/23 elsewhere. It really depends on what and how many users are being supported.

zweton

didnt think it would be that low

mkdon

thats crazy low

is that with a degree university degree?

syklops

washman3 wrote: »

23-25k.???

During the Celtic Tiger I had to wait until I had a few years experience before I got 25k. My first IT Support job I was on just under 18k. Maybe 21K, but in these austere times, there will be people with more experience willing to work for less.

syklops

mkdon wrote: »

thats crazy low

is that with a degree university degree?

What the job pays is irrelevant to the qualifications of its workers. IT Support is a low paid sector, always has been. Generally the talented ones move from support to other sectors like Ops, Engineering, QA etc. Some move into management. Its only people with no drive and ambition who make IT Support their career.

zweton

mkdon wrote: »

thats crazy low

is that with a degree university degree?

Yes

zweton

syklops wrote: »

What the job pays is irrelevant to the qualifications of its workers. IT Support is a low paid sector, always has been. Generally the talented ones move from support to other sectors like Ops, Engineering, QA etc. Some move into management. Its only people with no drive and ambition who make IT Support their career.

True enough i guess

whippet

basic IT support techs are ten a penny at the moment. The supply far exceeds the demand and thus the pay will be low.

zweton

whats usually the next step up from a support role?

omen80

mkdon wrote: »

thats crazy low

is that with a degree university degree?

I worked in IT support for 5 years with a uni degree and never got above 26k. The money isn't great in that area, especially if it's 1st or 2nd level support. IT consultants tend to earn a bit more though.

kippy

zweton wrote: »

whats usually the next step up from a support role?

It depends.......
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2178383/IT-Career-Paths
A bit of information in there.........

I started in Support, straight out of college with a certificate and 1 years experience, working for a company in dublin with 450 employees on approx 18K pa.
Moved jobs within 9 months to 24K a month, with less people to support but far more demanding. Here I got Network+ and a few MCP's to the MCSA moving to 27K just before I left. Moved to Galway 18 months later, took a 1K wage drop. Staying with same company in Galway, getting A+, Security+ and MCSE. Ended up close to 30K before I left. Been where I am now a few grand higher than that for past 4 years, having got Diploma in IT, Vmware cert and almost finished a Certificate in Training and have managed to branch out into providing training as well as the bread and butter of support. Going for my 2008 quals later in the year. Just gone aged 30, I'd say had I stayed in Dublin I would probably be on more money, not having to have done as much extra educational work.
The next step on the ladder would probably have been sys admin, either microsoft or cisco, followed by some level of consultancy but you'd have to be moving around companies a lot to get the required experience.

IT is NOT an easy field, IT support even less so but I like it, something new almost every day, a challenge and indeed a good few jobs, although not all well paid.
Right now, my support job is fairly busy, getting involved with almost every area, a jack of all trades, master of none would be best used to describe me.

syklops

zweton wrote: »

whats usually the next step up from a support role?

Depends on the actual type of support and what the person does in their spare time. For a lot of my friends, who did support for service providers they ended up in the NOCs of various service providers.

My main interests were security and Linux, so I did a number of projects in those fields in my spare time, and have managed to land myself a security position for a Linux company now, but my first job after support was Sys Admin for a hosting company.

kippy

Here is a salary survey for this year - theres a few of them out there
http://career-advice.monster.ie/salary-benefits/pay-salary-advice/salary-survey-ie/article.aspx
25K - 45K appears to be the dublin helpdesk/support average - getting to the top end of that means getting more qualifications, more experience and moving around after a few years unless you are well looked after.

testicle

zweton wrote: »

whats usually the next step up from a support role?

Tea Maker.

Eoin

testicle wrote: »

Tea Maker.

Not helpful.

Daith

zweton wrote: »

whats usually the next step up from a support role?

Generally System Admin type role.

You really need to specialize though. Pick one area you like and know everything about it.

zweton

Daith wrote: »

Generally System Admin type role.

You really need to specialize though. Pick one area you like and know everything about it.

if you havnt been doing any sys admin work how would you know which areas to specialize in? are there lots?

strokemyclover

zweton wrote: »

if you havnt been doing any sys admin work how would you know which areas to specialize in? are there lots?

Probably the best way is to get a job in a large enough company that will provide exposure to these areas and allow you to pick one which appeals to you so you can work on it in your own time in order to improve.

Certain small companies will allow you to do this too but when you are unsure of which direction to take in I.T. a company with 200+ employees will use a broader I.T. base than one with 20.

NullZer0

Stay away from small companies - they will be the end of you!

red menace

Would agree with iRock
In a small company you will end up looking after everything support/backups/ updates /infrastructure/security etc etc
Plus being the IT Guy you will be brought everything that has a plug to fix

Eoin

That can sometimes be a good thing as you might get a little more pigeon-holed in a larger company, but there are definitely downsides as well. It's a gamble.

red menace wrote:

Plus being the IT Guy you will be brought everything that has a plug to fix

Heh, I remember when I was working for a small organisation during the Y2K panic, and the office manager asked me to confirm with Powercity if the toaster and kettle were Y2K compliant.

zweton

id imagine there would be more exposure in a smaller company...

fret_wimp2

Il give my spin on the two questions here:

Big companies vs small companies

Big companies can be just as bad for your career. They have teams for everything so when you do get to an ops/engineer role, you dont actually get do do anything.

I want a server built, i contact the build team and ask them to make a VM or image a box for me.

I want SQL Mirroring reinitialized, I contact the SQL L1 team.

I want a DNS Set up, i contact the DNS team. etc etc.

I need to know concepts, but not how any of that sutff works, which is no good for experience.

Im now getting out of this role and going to a very small very specialized IT company. I agree that in a small company where the product is not IT based, you can become "the IT Guy", which is equally just as bad.

Ideally, get into a company who's business is IT and specialize in one area.

How much for Support job in Ireland

Im afraid I agree with the folks here, basic L1/L2 support ( helpdesk) is not a great payer. Best option is to get into an operations/admin role. Even then, a lot of this work is being outsourced to other countries, mainly India in my experience.

You will prob get support work easier in a smaller company who cant as easily outsource, but you will not be earning a whole lot. low end, i would guess around 20k, high end would probably be 35k ish if your very lucky.

As was advised, specialize. dont become IT support. Become a Network Engineer, System Admin or some other more specialized role to ensure you will be valuable and will gain experience that will be worth while and valued in other companies.

kippy

zweton wrote: »

id imagine there would be more exposure in a smaller company...

There usually is - some people dont like that, personally I think its a great learning opportunity and the areas for progression up the salary stakes and usefullness stakes are a lot more at times than in a larger company with more people competing for jobs.
Doesnt suit everyone - but neither does doing pretty much the same thing all the time.

Eoin

zweton wrote: »

id imagine there would be more exposure in a smaller company...

It really depends. I started out in tech support in a small organisation where there were very few procedures. So lots of trial and error and learning on the job as I went. I then moved to a larger company that was a bit more structured. They had a much wider range of technologies, so I got to learn different things there too, but was also able to specialise a bit more because we had more IT staff.

JackieChan

fret_wimp2 wrote: »

Il give my spin on the two questions here:

Big companies vs small companies

Big companies can be just as bad for your career. They have teams for everything so when you do get to an ops/engineer role, you dont actually get do do anything.

I want a server built, i contact the build team and ask them to make a VM or image a box for me.

I want SQL Mirroring reinitialized, I contact the SQL L1 team.

I want a DNS Set up, i contact the DNS team. etc etc.

I need to know concepts, but not how any of that sutff works, which is no good for experience.

Im now getting out of this role and going to a very small very specialized IT company. I agree that in a small company where the product is not IT based, you can become "the IT Guy", which is equally just as bad.

Ideally, get into a company who's business is IT and specialize in one area.

How much for Support job in Ireland

Im afraid I agree with the folks here, basic L1/L2 support ( helpdesk) is not a great payer. Best option is to get into an operations/admin role. Even then, a lot of this work is being outsourced to other countries, mainly India in my experience.

You will prob get support work easier in a smaller company who cant as easily outsource, but you will not be earning a whole lot. low end, i would guess around 20k, high end would probably be 35k ish if your very lucky.

As was advised, specialize. dont become IT support. Become a Network Engineer, System Admin or some other more specialized role to ensure you will be valuable and will gain experience that will be worth while and valued in other companies.

And what's worse if it's like our place, you have these geographically spread with teams in India,Philipennes and Vietnam(the teams I deal with have little spoken English but yet can write/read it!!). When I heard the Version 1 MD on Morning Ireland during the week, how I wished they had jobs matched to my skillset!!

syklops

zweton wrote: »

id imagine there would be more exposure in a smaller company...

There is, but to be honest, its a very mixed bag.

I used to work for a company with 6 employees. I was a Sys Admin, and it was one step up from me to the CTO. That said, after about 6 months I got all the exposure to stuff I was going to get, so I could work away for years and wait for the CTO to die/retire/get bored, and maybe get a promotion to CTO. Instead I went and joined a multi-national.

The other downside of a small company is when things go wrong, you are often the only person who can fix stuff, so say goodbye to 48 hour weekends, and 2 week holidays where you actually have 2 weeks off all at the same time.

It can be a great learning environment, because if you need a new DNS server, then you need to learn DNS and then get a server and configure it for DNS. Where as in a multinational, you just send a ticket to the helpdesk and they do it for you.

You can be lucky and unlucky.

My advice: do loads of projects in your spare time. Set up some test machines, run a range of diffferent OSs. Hardware is so cheap and easy to get compared to when i was starting out. While doing that you will get a feel for what you want to specialise in. I know a guy who was interested in firewalls, so he started setting up smoothwall hardware based firewalls for schools and small businesses in his area for free. He now travels the world and earns about 100k a year as a firewall specialist for a big MNC.

IT Support is not a carreer, its a stepping stone.

strokemyclover

JackieChan wrote: »

When I heard the Version 1 MD on Morning Ireland during the week, how I wished they had jobs matched to my skillset!!

I do have their skillset but the .NET application support game has changed a lot over the past few years due to recessionary times. Instead of having a 3-tier support structure, as is the case in fewer companies these days, they have a flatter 2-tier structure and expect 2nd level to do development aswell as support - some expect 50% development/50% support!

I have 4 years 1st/2nd level support in a small company in my last role with only bits and pieces of development work I was allowed to do due to developers trying to keep their job so I trip up on most technical interviews (got down to a final 2 situation twice). I've done enough of them now at this stage to just wait for those senior application support-only roles to become available - almost 4 months waiting!

It drove me nuts listening to that guy from Version 1 discuss the lack of available Irish people to employ for these roles on NewsTalk the other day as I can do the work/am a quick learner but am just not so confident on my development skills as I am with regular support. Needless to say my CV was submitted two weeks ago and I haven't heard anything since!

Be careful what you wish for.

syklops

strokemyclover wrote: »

I do have their skillset but the .NET application support game has changed a lot over the past few years due to recessionary times. Instead of having a 3-tier support structure, as is the case in fewer companies these days, they have a flatter 2-tier structure and expect 2nd level to do development aswell as support - some expect 50% development/50% support!

I have 4 years 1st/2nd level support in a small company in my last role with only bits and pieces of development work I was allowed to do due to developers trying to keep their job so I trip up on most technical interviews (got down to a final 2 situation twice). I've done enough of them now at this stage to just wait for those senior application support-only roles to become available - almost 4 months waiting!

It drove me nuts listening to that guy from Version 1 discuss the lack of available Irish people to employ for these roles on NewsTalk the other day as I can do the work/am a quick learner but am just not so confident on my development skills as I am with regular support. Needless to say my CV was submitted two weeks ago and I haven't heard anything since!

Be careful what you wish for.

Basically what you are saying is they want developers who are willing to do support, not support personnel who are willing to do development. As the lack of jobs continues, this will become more common. In some ways its a good thing, as it vastly enhances the support line experience, but in other ways, it means people who already have a good chance of getting a good job(devs) are overshadowing people with less obvious skills(non-devs).

Needless to say my CV was submitted two weeks ago and I haven't heard anything since!

Ring them. If you want it, you have to fight for it. Ring them everyday until they say yes or no. Don't be afraid of losing the job just because you annoy HR with a simple call every day. If nothing else it will show you want the job, versus the guy who submitted his CV and left it at that.

Agent Smith

testicle wrote: »

Tea Maker.

Everyone knows we drink coffee!