But what about scientists? Somewhat bafflingly, much of what goes on in the lab still relies on the same pen-and-paper methods that have served science well this past millennium. So how is digital technology affecting life in the lab? And will the tools that have already made inroads phase out science’s analogue darlings, or will they be dropped once the novelty wears off?

In the early days of the smartphone, apps were mainly minimalist platform games or an easy way to find a good Thai restaurant. But their fun-loving childhood was short-lived and they are now more synonymous with utility than shakable light-sabres. This has made them an essential part of daily life for many. One particularly useful group for scientists is archiving apps like . Effectively allowing you to archive all the notes you have ever taken on a subject, be it a voice memo or a scribble on a napkin, Evernote and its ilk appeal to the budding lifeloggers among us – and those who need to organise vast amounts of information.

Another popular app is . Created by Sarah Butcher and her team at Imperial College London, this data-collection cousin to note-taking apps takes information recorded by a smartphone, logs each data point’s location, and then sends it to a central server. The app can be applied to virtually any type of project – from logging disease transmission in western Africa to mapping your summer road trip.

“People have a very clear idea of how they generate data, but they don’t necessarily have the means to analyse it or to share it in a way that makes it usable,” says Butcher. This becomes more of a problem as people want to integrate larger data sets, she says. “You might have 10 postdocs all working on the same project, generating and modelling data of different types. They need to be able to visualise the same stuff at the same time.” Epicollect can solve this problem.

Despite the popularity of apps such as these, and the relatively straightforward development process to make and distribute them, science apps are not available in anything like the same number as finance or business apps. Why is this?

“No one ever really thinks software can do the tasks of pen-and-paper processes in lab science,” says Chris Seaton. He co-created the app while doing a PhD in computer science at the University of Manchester, UK. Having been a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps, Seaton knew that when people receive serious burns, medics need to get the right amount of fluid into them very quickly. Mersey Burns calculates the precise quantity of fluids needed, saving time and avoiding mistakes.

But long-standing medical practices are hard to phase out, even when they are flawed. Not to mention that whipping out a smartphone in the ER may rub some doctors, and patients, up the wrong way. But Seaton thinks digital tools need to become an extension of our professional minds, even in high-stress situations. “They just need to crack on and get the fluids in. The idea is that the app can be in their back pocket and it’s free so they have it when they need it.”

Not all scientists are against the march of smartphones. For Enea Milioris, a second year PhD student at the Institute for Child Health at University College London, note-taking apps have revolutionised the way he organises his work. Of these, he prefers Evernote, he says. “I drop in protocols, data, sample lists, scanned gels, meeting notes, presentations, admin paperwork. Everything.” The other apps in his digital tool-belt reflect the variety of his work. “On the bench, I use DailyCalcs, Protocols and Cloning Bench as well as the Promega app. They are all handy quick references and I find the visualisation of protocols helps me shift focus.”

“I drop protocols, data, sample lists, scanned gels, meeting notes and presentations into the Evernote app. Everything”

Currently, Milioris is an outlier in his embrace of all things digital, being one of just a few in his department that has caught the app bug. That’s understandable, he says, as things can get pretty messy in the lab. “Not everyone wants their phone or tablet in the way of salmonella, and in departments like mine you can’t put your work in the cloud as it’s private data, often from patients.” Nevertheless, Milioris relishes not having to look through yellowing notebooks every time he needs to look something up.

Social media’s presence in traditional science can also be a touchy subject. In most fields, Twitter, Facebook and blogging platforms like WordPress and Tumblr have become accepted as effective ways of broadening your profile, bringing with them a vast range of potential faux pas and new etiquette (retweeting compliments is a no-no; the casual publishing of panda videos less so).

To tweet or not to tweet

Hugh Goold is a PhD student studying lipid biochemistry at the Aix-Marseille University in France. A social media user himself, he is well aware of its complex identity among scientists. Goold uses tools like Dropbox and the Google suite, but his feelings are mixed when it comes to social media networks that specifically target professionals. “I use LinkedIn for my work life and Facebook for my social life. But honestly, I think it’s very superficial to look at someone’s online profile. I think being proactive and making a phone call beats checking someone in that clandestine way,” he says. But he does admit to using social media to ask friends for advice. “Recently I used Facebook to troubleshoot a problem I had with a DNA prep. Because I’m friends with so many scientists, I got a bunch of great ideas.”

Blogging is another increasingly popular way for plugged-in scientists to share information. Scientopia is one of several platforms for science bloggers to publish their thoughts on everything from tornadoes to time travel. One of its founders and most prolific bloggers is , a postdoctoral lab researcher in the US who prefers to use her online pseudonym to distinguish her online presence from her offline career. To her, blogging has the potential to humanise a field which is too often misunderstood by the public. “The science culture as a whole is such a black box to most people,” she says. “I love the bloggers who write about their experiences, who open that black box up and show that scientists are people too.”

But to Scicurious, the perception that scientists may only be in the blogging game to promote their research is far from accurate. “I never write about my own research to avoid conflicts of interest. Writing about work that is outside of my field, though, has allowed me to put connections together for my work that I never would have seen.”

There’s no doubt, however, that the increased exposure that social media brings can increase a researcher’s currency. Writing on a blog for 91av, Inger Mewburn, a research fellow at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia, described how, as a result of her , her work has been featured in the mainstream media, which led to requests to give keynote talks and write books. “In short, I have had access to opportunities usually reserved for more experienced players. It would take me at least 10 years to achieve this kind of status and recognition through the normal academic ‘fame’ channels of citations and conference attendances,” she wrote.

Beyond the blogging format, social networking tools – particularly Twitter – can bring an additional value to researchers. They are linked to large groups of people, who aren’t just an audience for any findings, but also a potential vehicle for gathering data in the first place. Alexandre Bayen, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, has long been interested in the flow of information accessible with networking tools. His team has developed , a traffic monitoring system for the California Bay Area which harvests GPS data from people’s phones. It uses data taken from , a social network that allows commuters to comment on traffic, and the team is currently looking at ways to harness commuter-commuter interaction through the network to produce traffic updates. Bayen describes social media as “probably the most forward-thinking way” of engaging people, particularly as a way to share information.

“Social media is probably the most forward-thinking way of engaging with people and sharing information”

Scicurious agrees that the use of social media is quickly evolving. But she cautions that many still need to be convinced that it is “not a waste of time that should be spent in the lab or writing papers, but a useful tool that can help you in your career”.

So what’s next to be digitised in the world of science? Recommendations for what you read, perhaps? It’s not hard to imagine the day when an algorithm is telling scientists which research papers to read, just like Amazon’s algorithm tells you what books to buy.

But things are already going further than that. Take Eureqa – a program of predictive algorithms developed by Hod Lipson and colleagues at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. When let loose on a set of data, it can find the laws of nature that govern it. The algorithm behind the software is relatively straightforward, but the implications are astounding, potentially lending insight into the natural world – even to areas which are presently a mystery. “Data collection from new experiments has far outpaced our ability to analyse it,” says Michael Schmidt, one of its developers. “This data is a powder keg waiting to go off, just as soon as our algorithms can catch up. Tools like Eureqa are a new way to navigate this abundance of observation.”

If such tools live up to their promise, anyone with data will soon be able to winnow out laws of nature. But there are major challenges. “What do we do when we have the answer but not the explanation? Will we be able to comprehend scientific results indefinitely? How do we choose what to study? These will be the core issues occupying scientists in the next few decades,” says Schmidt.

And it’s not just experimental data analysis that is being targeted. Another program that will surely occupy scientists’ minds if it catches on is one which claims to determine who should get that sought-after position or research grant. In September 2012, Nature published a . It is based on the “h-index”, which calculates a scientist’s impact based on their publications and citations. Daniel Acuna from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and colleagues set out to predict future h-indices based on crowd-sourced listings of scientists and their mentors via academic database .

Ethical or practical disclaimers in the paper are few and far between; the team are eager to emphasise their model’s real-world applications. “Our formula is particularly useful for funding agencies, peer reviewers and hiring committees who have to deal with vast numbers of applications and can give each only a cursory examination,” they write, adding that “the results offer some comfort by showing that the future is not so random”.

Whether any company or university would actually submit their applicants to the new equation is really a matter of speculation. But applications like this – which turn scientists into a data point in someone else’s black box – remind us that proponents of the digitisation of science, hungry for the time-saving, paper-saving and crowd-sourcing benefits it promises, will also have to be prepared for the mirror to be turned on them.

Should I lie about getting a 2:2? I mean, no one ever checks, right?

Remember the time you told a little white lie and then had to tell another to keep up the pretence, and then a more serious porky to cover your back which resulted in sleepless nights terrorised by the thought of people finding out and dreams of exponentially more complex fabrications? Now imagine feeling like this every day.

OK, so maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but lying on your CV, whether it’s about your qualifications or your experience, isn’t good for your mental health – and it may even get you into trouble with the law. And with the introduction of the government-backed you really could be found out.

But don’t despair if you didn’t get the degree you were hoping for. There are sensible, accepted and honest ways for graduates with 2:2s or lower to format their CVs which don’t come with the anxiety of being caught in a career-destroying lie years down the line.

“A 2:2 is not a death sentence,” says Donna Medway, founder and director of recruitment consultancy in Hartfield, East Sussex. “When applying for jobs directly, think carefully about what the company has asked for, and order your CV in conjunction with that.” There may even be cases, Medway says, when it could be acceptable to leave your degree classification off entirely. “If the key criteria in the job specification are particular skills, then really, who cares?” she says. “I would certainly order that application with the specific skill they require at the very top.”

Emphasising personal projects will also help. Did you get sidetracked in your third year when you started developing a new scripting language? Did you get involved in a start-up? Student journalism? Not only can your projects explain less-than-stellar parts of your CV, they demonstrate skills that employers value and are fun to talk about, and all recruiters are looking to be engaged.

I really like science, but if I’m honest I’d prefer to earn a huge salary. Can I have both?

It depends on what you mean by huge. It also depends on where your interests lie, and how willing you are to deviate from them, if needs be. It’s possible you have lost sight of how very applicable “hard” science is to the real world (four years of all-nighters in a lab will do that to you), and scientists can be more humble about their salary needs than their counterparts in the humanities, perhaps due to this misperception.

published by the Office of National Statistics indicate that a STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) degree could land you one of the top-earning jobs in the country, especially if it had an engineering focus. In 2011, mining and energy managers, air-traffic controllers and aircraft engineers all ranked in the UK’s top 10 highest-paid careers, with salaries of £53,741, £55,352 and £71,555, respectively.

IT could also be a path for a money-minded graduate. A recent on the health of the graduate market by High Fliers indicated that although computing and IT’s median starting salary is £30,000, non-technical industries regularly recruit IT specialists. This includes the top two best-paying industries – law and investment banking. Or if you have a great idea, why not try to turn it into cash? “Many scientists choose to go down a more entrepreneurial route and become self-employed, which can offer healthy financial rewards,” says Kirsten Roche, a careers adviser at the University of Edinburgh. But don’t forget that this usually requires several years of hard graft before you see the pound signs flash. Ultimately, it pays to use a little common sense when weighing your 9-to-5 options. “If you find a job you enjoy, you are more likely to be good at it and therefore more likely to progress to higher levels where financial rewards may be greater,” says Roche.

*$%!, I have absolutely no clue what I want to do. Advice?

First of all, join the club. In case you missed every single coming-of-age film in the last three decades, self-discovery lasts long after graduation. First, come to terms with the fact that, simply put, your first job might suck a little. This doesn’t mean that the rest of your life will be some dire David Lynchian nightmare.

“Not knowing exactly what you want to do now doesn’t mean that the rest of your life will be some David Lynchian nightmare.”

Deep breath. Now let’s find you a job. “First off, use your university’s careers service,” says Roche. Most graduates can continue using it for at least a year or two after graduating. Next, try not to be completely led by your degree title. Take stock of what you enjoyed doing within it. Was it the research? The computation? Interacting with your professors? Even if it was organising the Biochem Society pub crawls, think about what latent talents that implies.

Getting some work experience can help bring things into brutal clarity. Even a few days shadowing someone in a job you think you might enjoy is usually enough to tell whether it is worth exploring further. Think forensic pathology might be an interesting way to put your 2:1 to good use, just like in CSI? Talking to the jaded pathologist across the road might put you off when you hear what the job really entails.

If all else fails, personality profiling tools such as by Reckitt Benckiser might prove useful – just be sure to take them as navigation points in your soul-searching, not as gospel.

How will flipping burgers/answering the phone/filing ever get me where I want to go?

Steve 91av collected Coke cans for cash after dropping out of college. Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal, served in the South African military. And then there was Albert Einstein’s famous stint at the patent office. While no two stop-gap jobs are the same, even the most mindless part-time gig will leave you with some transferable skills. And every skill you develop – every shelf you inventory, every booklet you photocopy – can be CV fodder when viewed in the right light. Did you make a latte and a sandwich at the same time? You just multitasked. Did you get yelled at but held it together? You maintained composure in a high-stress situation. While you are probably familiar with this kind of CV padding, don’t undervalue the qualities you have.

As for how an employer will react to your stop-gap job: “Great, why not?” says Emma Judge, head of UK recruitment for BP. She looks on any character-building experiences as excellent content for a CV. “Graduates should possess interpersonal skills for a job at a company like BP,” she says. “We value not only the academic achievements of our graduate recruits but also their extracurricular and work-based experiences.”

So flip away, at least for now.

I have an MSc/PhD. Do I really have to start at the bottom?

“It depends on the job and the company,” says Roche. “PhD and MSc graduates do need to be very aware of the skills, knowledge, experience and personal qualities they developed through their higher-level studies – for example research work, teaching and writing funding proposals. It is up to them to demonstrate the value of these qualifications to employers.”

So by all means value your talent, your time and your work, but when entering the job market, stay firmly grounded in reality. After all, a PhD is often training for an academic career; there are few jobs outside of academia that insist on one. If you know that you are not going to continue on a scholarly path after your PhD, then use your time wisely and get involved with extracurricular projects that will impress future employers. Share your passion for science by talking about your research at festivals with groups like or let your inner comedian run riot at your local . Both will show employers that you are gregarious and can take your science beyond the lab.

I’m 28 and looking for my first real job. Should I try to artfully disguise the gaps in my CV?

Back to those extracurricular projects! What have you been doing for those “lost” years? What did you learn? You may be chuckling, but anything from “I taught myself C#” to “I sold fairy cakes at Secret Garden Party” has its value.

Don’t focus only on the successes. People who are in the position to be hiring are usually experienced enough to empathise with first efforts and failures, especially if you have picked up skills and learned lessons from the experience. Persevering in the face of adversity is a great one, too, but don’t forget that it takes a stronger person to quit their PhD after two years and £10,000 than to simply ride it out because that’s the easy option. It’s all about how you spin the gaps – just be sure to practise your interview answers so you don’t get caught off guard.

Do recruitment consultants take on graduates and are they really any help?

Some prefer to focus on big fish recruits like CEOs. Others, particularly those specialising in technology and engineering, are eager to pass on exciting new blood to their clients. “Although in general our clients carry out their own graduate recruitment in-house,” says Kathryn Jones of cross-sector recruiters, , “we do recruit for occasional engineering roles at graduate level.” Engineering recruitment firm senior consultant Daniel Zeff also confirms that they regularly take on STEM graduates.

Find the right company and the right consultant and it will make a difference to your job search. “You should be looking for someone who is going to put their interests first, not the interests of the agency,” says Medway. “Look for someone who will be able to sell you personally to the client.”

My real passion lies in such-and-such but that’s too competitive. It’s OK just to become a teacher, right?

Do you like teaching? Do you like young people? Do you know enough about it to realise that it’s not all one long summer holiday? Then sure, go for it. But if you answer no to any of these, then teaching probably isn’t for you.

Think back to your school days. The best teachers, the ones that made school worth going to, were those whose passion for the subject and their desire to impart knowledge to impressionable young brains shone through. Sitting in a class with a teacher who didn’t really want to be there was excruciating. If teaching is not your vocation, don’t do it. Plus it’s a myth that teaching is easy to get into, especially for people who are more familiar with 1s and 0s than with children.

On the other hand, if you are looking for something to justify a year abroad after graduation, you could do a lot worse than a stint teaching English as a foreign language. This will give you a chance to test whether teaching really is your calling and if it isn’t, at least it will show recruiters that you are capable of inspiring and training people.

Do I really have to network on LinkedIn, post intelligently on Twitter and maintain a blog to get a job? It sounds like too much effort.

Use social media to the extent that you will benefit from it – and be very realistic about how it will do that. Social media comes with its own set of risks; that something you publish may reflect poorly upon you or that embarrassing photo from uni may crop up.

But the big three – Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook – are excellent ways of finding and maintaining contacts. And if you are one of the increasing number of science graduates hoping to go into media and science communication jobs, then social media takes on vastly more day-to-day importance.

“Social media is extremely important, and I use various platforms every day,” says Rebecca Nesbit, press officer for the Society of Biology in London. “Blogging is a great way to share interesting stories which may not make it to the mainstream media, and it’s a way of keeping people updated with our news.” And as a graduate in a competitive job market, Nesbit found that mastering online media paid off enormously. “Before landing my job I had my own blog, which is easy to set up and a good way to practise writing and keep up with interesting science,” she says. “I’d recommend it to anyone thinking of pursuing a job which involves writing or communication in any way.”

I’ve sent off at least 100 applications and had three replies – all rejections. Surely I can give up now and just watch reruns of Jeremy Kyle all day?

It’s true that applying for jobs is a bit of a numbers game, but it’s also true that there’s always something you can do to tip the odds in your favour. If you are sending off tonnes of applications and not getting any joy, take a long, hard look at your approach and see what’s not working. The most likely cause is that you are not spending enough time on each application. Review your strategy. Are you aiming too wide? Too narrow? Sending out a one-size-fits-all cover letter?

“It is always good to see that a candidate has done his or her research about the role that they are applying for and the organisation as a whole,” says Judge. “Do the preparation and research ahead of the interview and it will be invaluable. That information will allow the candidate to get the most out of the interview process and will provide us with the opportunity to really engage with them.”

Either way, spending your days watching daytime television is no remedy. Neither is drowning in a tub of Ben & Jerry’s or making the pub your second home. See your job hunt as a job. Work on it 9 to 5, have a lunch break and enjoy your time off at the weekends. At the end of the week, you will be much more satisfied than if you had stayed in bed until lunchtime every day, no matter how many interview invites come through the letter box.

Keith Archer is vice-president of infrastructure and operations at video game publisher , based in Santa Monica, California. The company owns 14 games studios and its biggest hits include the Call of Duty franchise, and Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure, the bestselling video-game of 2012 so far

What does your role at Activision involve?

I run all the global infrastructure and operations. This means my team manages all the applications that run the business. This includes the network, the operating systems, the data storage, all hardware, everything on top of someone’s desk – the phone, the PC, the laptop, the monitor, as well as all server connectivity and data centres.

Do different games need different technology?

It depends on the console, the genre, and what the developers are trying to do. All the studios use the same “dev kits” to help code and test the game, whether it be an Xbox, Wii or Playstation 3 title. Studios also use similar 3D design software such as Autodesk or Maya so there are some consistent platforms that they use. It’s really about how the developers use those tools that makes their games unique.

What does a typical day look like?

On a day-to-day basis, I work on our ongoing projects, carry out risk assessments and liaise with vendors. I’m on the corporate side of things so there are lots of meetings. Of course, we also deal with the operational side – the “we’re having issues, please resolve it” type of challenges. This is what most people will have some experience of but the reality is that IT support is a sideline to what we do first and foremost – providing technological improvements and looking at what’s next in terms of technology for the organisation.

What sort of new technologies is Activision looking into?

We’re looking at moving some of our platforms into the cloud. By moving towards cloud solutions, I am essentially extending my team into someone else’s organisation. We may know how to do these tasks but we don’t gain anything by hosting them ourselves. By contracting them out to other people we have more time to focus on our business, plus it helps to reduce our carbon footprint.

There has also been a shift in terms of personal technology: making our titles tablet or smartphone friendly, and there have been attempts to compete with your Angry Birds or with Facebook apps. Games like Call of Duty or Elite are an attempt to bring the gamer into a social arena that they enjoy with other people, and provide some value through that.

What advice would you give to graduates or career-changers looking to move into computing or IT?

You need to be very flexible and able to adapt to change quickly. You need to embrace change, really. Keep up with trends in the market. Everything moves very fast but there are always broader influences driving that speed.

Specialise in a certain area and don’t try to do it all. Get some experience: you can get demo versions of almost anything. Get familiar with a tool and concentrate your attention on that area. Any one area that you focus on has its own world of opportunity.

Andrew Roberts is a senior web developer at the , a web design company based in London. He acted as chief developer on a recent project for the UK’s Royal Institution, creating their online science video portal, . He talks us through what it is like to manage such a project

With any big project a clear game plan is key. The first step is always analysis. We need to identify the client’s requirements and understand what they are trying to achieve. At this early stage they are not always fully aware of what they want, so it’s important to clarify the concept.

Then comes the research phase. We look into the possible technologies we could use – hardware, software and infrastructure – and discuss our approach. Sometimes we employ the technologically great post-it-note or good old-fashioned pen and paper to draw diagrams brainstorming model flow, user interaction or database design.

Often our next stage will be to build a prototype to see if an idea is feasible and how it will work in real life. We also link in with the design team, to write a concise technical specification and flesh out how the user will interact with the product. Finally, there’s the “build, design and refine” stage, where both teams work together to build the final product. Clients are kept abreast of developments throughout, and there is always a bit of refinement based on their feedback.

There were lots of obstacles to overcome when developing the Ri Channel. The biggest was the video technology itself, which has been developing quickly with the advent of HTML5 and new streaming techniques. The Royal Institution wanted their channel to have the greatest possible reach, which meant that alongside a website we had to ensure the platform was mobile compliant and could be used on the majority of mobile devices, many of which employ different embedding and streaming technologies. This meant that each video uploaded into the system had to have six different renditions, each with different encodings, bit rates and resolutions.

The buzz of feedback

But it seems our hard work paid off. The feedback from the public has been hugely rewarding. Knowing that the platform we built is being used by teachers and parents as an education tool is a great buzz. It helps that the content is truly amazing, including archive footage of David Attenborough from the 60s as well as years’ worth of the Royal Institution’s Christmas lectures. I sometimes find myself on the site in my down time, and I know a few others who helped build it do the same.

I was drawn to computer science because of a natural ability to code alongside the realisation that the sector would develop forever, which brought the promise of constant challenges. Things were developing so rapidly when I began my degree at Kingston University in London that it was difficult for the courses to keep up. It was, and still is, an exciting time. My degree included a year in industry which I found really valuable as it allowed me to hone my skills and learn new ones. The web seemed like the most creative arena for my skill set, so that was the path I chose.

Like any IT professional, it is imperative that I stay up to date with what is going on in my field. The web is the best place to do that. provides a broad range of tech development news, is great for inspiration and getting a “best of web design” snapshot, and hosts an invaluable community-driven forum aimed at programmers.

At the end of last year, companies expected to fill more graduate IT vacancies in 2012 than any other role bar finance positions, say graduate recruitment analysts, High Flyers, who interviewed 100 of the UK’s top graduate employers. So whether you have just received your computer science degree or completed an external software certification, now is the time to dive into the job market. Understanding the types of jobs awaiting you across IT and computing is the first step toward securing your ideal job.

Though tech positions are varied and often require interwoven skill sets, computing and IT jobs can be very broadly categorised into: engineering, support, and development. IT recruiters tend to organise their trainees similarly. “Recruits on FDM’s IT consultancy graduate programme, for example, rotate around six departments: Java and .Net development, software testing, application support, infrastructure support and project analysis,” says Louise Raycraft, FDM’s graduate recruitment representative. “These are the areas most desired by our clients.”

Software and application development using Java, .Net or other scripting languages are popular job roles in which programmers create new computer-based tools for both consumers (think of all the apps available on smartphones) and industry professionals. Software testing is pretty self-explanatory – the role involves detecting defects in a piece of software to better understand how well a product is working, and how much more time and money needs to be put into smoothing out functional problems.

In IT, infrastructure is the basic physical structure of an organisation. Someone working in infrastructure support, such as Keith Archer who is responsible for all of game publisher Activision Blizzard’s hard and software, would maintain the servers, connections between those servers, and internet connections. Like maintaining a city’s waterways, infrastructure support specialists support the skeleton that supports the whole system. Applications support is about looking after the systems that run on the infrastructure and roles typically require knowledge of software installation, how to back up hard drives, and the relationships between computer connections.

Project analysis roles such as Andrew Robert’s, a developer for a web design company, require the employee to keep tabs on the development of a new tool: what its users want to do with it, what it needs to look like and what needs to be achieved to get there. A good project analyst will have a clear overview of the design, strategy and business involved.

Get the tools

SQL, C++, C#, Java, and HTML5 are the bread and butter of modern programmers, and are ranked among the most sought after languages by employers according to independent UK market analysts . These languages are independently listed on about 80,000 job ads and the average salary for jobs that require these languages comes in at a healthy £42,000. Using a language with confidence should be at the core of your computer science skills, and a graduate will ideally have at least one language that they are fluent in.

Many languages are readily available for download, often for free. Python, with its simple, intuitive interface has made it a favourite free language among young developers and is a good choice if you’re looking to impress employers in new media and early-stage start-ups. Structured Query Language (SQL) is a common language for database analysis, engineering and business intelligence.

SQL is long established – something to bring up if your interviewers are veteran techies – but its protégé, NoSQL, now has a substantial following. NoSQL gives developers more freedom and the ability to scale up their applications in ways that SQL cannot. NoSQL tends to be preferred by companies dealing with big data and cloud services. For data specialists, Oracle, ETL, and Data Warehouse were ranked among the most in-demand tools in 2012’s first quarter, according to IT 91av Watch.

Windows, UNIX, and Linux remain the operating systems most advisable for job-seekers to develop fluency in. UNIX is a core operating system used in big data centres, and its sister-system Linux is what underlies big hitters like Amazon, Google and Facebook.

Get qualified

A computer science degree isn’t the only avenue into a high-earning career in IT. A recognised professional qualification proves to employers that you are willing to take the time to hone your expertise, and or a certification from Information Systems Examination Board (ISEB), Cisco Systems, Infinidox, or the widely used SAS will make your CV stand out.

While major software companies will typically offer in-person certification courses in large cities around the UK, computer-based certification is becoming an increasingly popular option for busy professionals. The is one such provider, offering a “remote labs experience, giving students virtual access to the up to date equipment they will find in the workplace”.

maintains that no doors are shut to jobseekers without a formal degree in IT. “Many companies recruit graduates with non-IT related subjects who will undertake additional IT specific training through post-graduate or professional training courses,” they advise. “Whichever option taken, the key to improving the chances of being recruited is to achieve the best degree possible and take advantage of any work experience offered as part of the course or during your vacations.”

Stay human

When it comes to finding a job in IT, some nuggets of advice crop up again and again: stay informed, develop your own personal projects, and keep your secondary skills, such as mathematics or formal logic, sharp. is a wildly popular non-profit learning portal, with free tutorial videos in everything from time-displacement physics to macroeconomics – really useful if you are interested in applying your computing skills to a new area. And don’t neglect personal interests that make you stand out from the crowd, such as graphic design or website design.

Once you’ve landed a job the need to stay on top of new trends becomes even more vital. Unsurprisingly, the professional community is increasingly turning to online media to stay current. “There’s a massive online community of developers and there are some key people really worth monitoring,” says Nick Berry, a senior developer at software development company McKinsey Solutions. “Twitter makes it a lot easier – you can subscribe to whoever is relevant to you. Specifically, Scott Guthrie (@scottgu) is generally quite a good source, and Paul Irish (@paul_irish) is good for more front-end trends.”

For interviews, be prepared for some unconventional practices, says Berry. “I have been asked to sit in front of someone and do a programming test. That kind of threw me. It’s not something you’re used to doing with someone sitting over your shoulder watching.”

As with most industries, it’s not just your knowledge and technical prowess that counts but also your soft skills. “Even if you can code applications with the best of them,” says Brian Beneda of HP, “if you don’t also have the ability to translate those skills into some sort of demonstrated business value for your employer, it’s very easy to get off into the weeds.” Training courses at the HP Institute emphasise the importance of business acumen and good communication along with the hard technical skills. “The really valuable people are the ones who can look across the technology discipline, and translate the business strategy into a multi-vendor, multi-strategy solution,” he says.

Good news, computing and IT job seekers: a background in computer science can land you a job in virtually any field which uses new technology. Today, that means pretty much any field that your heart desires. Whether you fancy staying close to your roots and working in IT support or cybersecurity, or you want to spread your wings and apply your computing skills to a more niche area – whether that be in drug discovery (see GSK employee Emmy Whittemore’s case study), aircraft design, finance or even fashion – the future looks bright.

Nearly 60 per cent of the UK’s top employers said they expected to recruit IT staff this year when polled for recruitment analysts High Fliers’ at the end of last year. “Information technology is ever changing, so the IT careers landscape is always evolving,” says Louise Raycraft, a graduate recruiter at , an international IT services provider and the UK’s biggest graduate recruiter in IT. “Over the past five years the demand for IT professionals has kept steady within business as firms look to implement new IT systems to save money, save time, or make money.” She says the trend “looks set to continue for future years as IT plays a more integral role in the global economy”.

And computing professionals are not limited to working in the traditional technology sector of IT service providers. On the contrary, graduates or career-changers with a background in computer science can easily find themselves working in a broad range of industries – from pharmaceuticals to media and virtually everywhere in between. While IT and telecommunications provided the seventh-highest salaries of the UK’s 14 major sectors in 2012 according to the High Fliers report – with a median starting salary of £30,000 – non-technical industries currently recruiting computer scientists include the top two best-paying industries, investment banking and law.

The demand for technical proficiency in non-tech industries is a growing trend, says Brian Beneda, director of Hewlett Packard’s academic programmes for , the company’s newly launched academic body that provides students with skills sought after by the industry. “No matter what field someone is going into, most are becoming technology-enabled, if they aren’t already,” he says. For example, a college of fashion has asked HP for help developing a technical module for their fashion design degrees to help students become proficient in design software such as AutoCAD.

Emmy Whittemore works in IT at pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in Brentford, UK. She is in the first year of a three year graduate scheme, after which she hopes to be given a permanent position in the company

What does your daily routine tend to involve?

It varies on a day-to-day basis. I can be working with clients on a project or managing my inbox to make sure that we’re on target with everything that’s rolling out. I might have meetings with everyone on the team, talking about what we did yesterday, what we’re doing today and what we’re planning to do in the future. But almost always I’m looking at the issues from an IT perspective.

A past challenge was to develop an Employee Health Safety system for an internal customer. We needed to keep it in line with the existing GSK IT strategy, but that proved a challenge to me as I wasn’t familiar with the technology that they were already using. My role was to build the new implementation strategies. The work can take me out of my comfort zone as I’m still relatively new to it, but I am really enjoying it. I feel like I own the project and am delivering something.

What experience did you need to get your job?

I did a joint honours degree in information systems at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. The degree was less technical than a computer science degree, but more technical than an IT degree. I also took business studies and project management courses during my degree as I thought it was important to have the skills that linked IT to different areas of business.

I did a work placement for Accenture before and during my university degree, and an industrial placement with GSK in research and development IT as part of my year in industry. This allowed me to see how IT fitted into a variety of business units.

How crucial are communication skills to your role?

They are really important. IT is about change – we implement, edit or enhance the technology that people use. Good communication skills are essential as not everyone you work with will have the same IT skills that you do. The ability to build good professional relationships with colleagues, be it face-to-face, on the phone, or over email, is key.

How do you stay on top of medical and tech news?

I have quite a few Google Alerts set up to flag relevant daily news. I’m also part of the Early Careers Network within GSK, which is a group of young people who are just starting their careers. We hold networking sessions where we talk about new trends and issues impacting the pharmaceuticals and tech industries.

Another group I’m part of is the . This is a big group of businesses and organisations that share their insights and experience of IT issues. They send out surveys and set up phone conferences that you can call into. Of course, another resource is the enthusiastic and knowledgeable people around me.

Why did you want to apply your computing skills to the pharmaceutical sector?

I wasn’t interested in IT from a storefront perspective – I didn’t want to work at the main IT companies. Instead I wanted to use IT to help businesses improve people’s lives. That’s the mission of GSK, and IT is what enables the company to do that. Working here means I can leave work at the end of the day knowing that I didn’t just spend my time making money for a company, but that I did my bit for the greater good.

“I fell into programming at a relatively early age,” says Joe Bott, an IT professional working for QuadGraphics, a printing company in Wisconsin. “By the time college came around there was no question what degree I’d be going for.”

But as the sector continues to grow, programmers like Bott are concerned that new trends will pull the carpet out from beneath professionals with pre-existing skill sets. “At some level I’d love to work with scripting languages full time. They offer a great way to solve problems that may be more cumbersome with older technologies,” Bott says. “At the same time, I have a very strong background in [programming language] C++. It’s not new, it’s not the most fun to work with, but it gets the job done amazingly well. If I was to take a job that didn’t utilise my C++ skills, I worry that I’d lose them over time.”

So if taking time off for new training is a calculated gamble, which languages, software and tools are worth the risk? And which topics should you brush up on in preparation for that job interview?

Melanie Pinola, an editor for cult-tech-cum-life management site , sees cloud technology – off-site, server-based data storage – as the biggest game-changer in IT. “All IT folk have to be more flexible these days, because of the incredible rate that new technologies are developed,” she says. “Cloud computing is already starting to change the way business is done, with less reliance on the in-house IT department in many cases.”

Pinola believes IT staff shouldn’t panic at the cloud’s threat to in-house IT work. There are two things you can do to stay relevant, she says: “Try to keep up with the new tech as best as possible – cloud security is a big deal, for example – and add skills in other areas, both business-related and technical.”

Big data, big opportunities

In the world of analytics, big data remains a hot topic. This is the industry that has sprung up to store and manage the huge datasets produced in fields such as genomics research, astronomy and particle physics, including that from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. It also includes data produced in social networks, e-commerce transactions and medical records to name but a few.

The ability to tease out meaningful information from these behemoths without spending a fortune is an extremely valuable skill. Indeed, research carried out by the London-based Centre for Economic and Business Research predicts that big data could over the next five years.

“As the amount of data exponentially grows, the need for analytical and data-savvy talent becomes ever more important” says Bill Simmons, co-founder of , a big data company based in Boston, Massachusetts. “We digest and analyse petabytes of data coming through our platform, so the majority of our new hires have mathematical and engineering backgrounds. It’s essential that they not only know how to analyse data, but also know how to write code that runs on thousands of servers in a parallel way.”

Another booming sector is in the development of apps, making those with knowledge of relevant development tools, from Apple’s Xcode to freeware like REBOL, highly valued by employers. HTML5 is the app development tool in greatest use and since December 2011, the salaries for positions requiring knowledge of it in the UK averaged out at £40,000.

In the first few months of 2012, vacancies for jobs involved in developing apps for Android, the iPhone and the iPad rose by 24 per cent in the UK found a report published by . The situation is similar in the US. During New York’s annual NYC Startup Job Fair, 40 per cent of the early stage startups exhibiting there advertised for positions in cross-platform app development.