Where to start
Coding skills are some of the most in-demand skills on the planet right now. Coding also happens to be a really accessible career with many ways to develop coding skills and experience. You could enrol on an online course, follow online tutorials, or study computer science in college or university. The best solution won’t be the same for everyone. Here is some advice from our developers:
“For me the best way I found for starting out and developing my coding skills was, whenever I encountered small inconveniences or problems, I’d start these small projects to fix that problem. Learning to code using real problems rather than using abstract examples has been the best solution for me.“
Mason House, Software Architect at iungo
“For those who aren’t as confident in starting your own project, GitHub has a huge range of community projects that are always looking for people to help, or you can expand on another project that you may see that interests you. Just know it’s never too late to start learning to code “.
Matt Ettridge, Product Owner at iungo
Anyone can get into coding at any age. Coding is quickly becoming a highly sought-after skill globally because all industries now require digital skills. Coronavirus increased this demand due to organisations being forced to adopt digital technologies to survive. The world thrived off the internet, whether to stay in contact with loved ones, or keep up to date in recent news. Many people continued to do their jobs home and working digitally, due to the majority of workplaces, worldwide, moving online.
Examples of coding
Coding is becoming an increasingly important skill to have in the workplace. Especially for those who participate in a more vital upfront part of online work – such as becoming a website developer or a software engineer.
Software Engineer
Software engineers have become high demand personnel to a business. They design and create computer systems and applications, which are capable of being able to connect people from across an entire business which can more times than not, include employees from across the globe. This is usually done in a short run of time which can help solve many real life problems, having the ability to code can help yourself and others get things done quicker and more efficiently.
Web Developer
Web developers design and develop webpages using front-end technologies like HTML, JavaScript and CSS. They speak to customers (internal to the organisation or external clients) to translate their requirements into a technical specification. Web development is rewarding as you get to turn your ideas into a reality, quickly, and make it look really good!
Digital Project Manager
The coding world is broad, and is becoming more and more impactful as time goes on, due to it being a key element in the digital transformation. Which also, is very likely to become a basic requirement for acquiring jobs in upcoming days. If you are interested in digital technologies but don’t want to spend all of your time at a computer, becoming a Digital Project Manager could be a great role for you! Digital Project Managers work with software engineers and developers to solve problems and create seamless digital solutions for their organisations and their clients. They manage digital projects to ensure they are completed in time, to specification and are properly implemented operationally.
How to get into coding
Coding can be learnt in a variety of different ways; one of the many ways to discover more about coding is to give a course a try, many courses provide mini games which help maintain better understandings of real life examples of what coding roles may require.
Academic Study
Most universities and many colleges now offer degree and higher education programmes in Computer Science, Computing, Software Development and related subjects. Typically, you will need BBB grades to get onto a Computer Science Degree course with one of those A-levels (or equivalent) being in mathematics. If you haven’t completed A-levels there are still ways to access higher education, such as via an Access to HE Diploma, Foundation Degree or by using existing experience and examples of relevant work. Most university Admission Departments are able to make an assessment of the transferability of your experience.
Academic programmes will help you to develop your knowledge of computing and the principles of programming. You will be well-positioned to apply for employment within the industry after completing 2 – 4 years of study. Although you may not get that much coding practice during the course itself.
Self-Study
There are many free online tutorials and low-cost online courses available to help you kickstart your coding career. The best way to get going is to identify a problem that you would like to solve and then work on developing the skills you need to build a digital solution.
Embedded Systems like Raspberry Pi and Arduino are fun ways to get started with programming. These are low-cost open-source products that allow you to write programs in Python and C to make physically things happen. For example you could create Raspberry Pi controlled colour-changing lighting for your kitchen or your car.
Coding Academies
At iungo we run a series of Coding Academies, for any person at any skill level. We have had many great results in introducing people to a completely new career. Most of our Coding Academies are full-time, free to attend and best of all you are guaranteed a job interview at the end!
James Allen from Cardiff spent 17 years in the hospitality industry before completing our 9 week Industry 4.0 Coding Academy for Advanced Manufacturing Industries. After graduating from the Academy he quickly secured a role as a Software Engineer at inmation UK. He’s currently out in Cologne completing his training at inmation’s German Headquarters!
“My advice to anyone thinking of attending the course is… to attend the course! Whether that’s straight out of university, or like me, having been in a job for a long time, to make that change… yes! It was a tough nine weeks, but it was absolutely worth doing and I would do it again!”
James Allen, Industry 4.0 Coding Academy Graduate 2022
These Academies help many people improve their thinking and problem solving abilities especially in the workplace. Understanding STEM skills and roles, plays a part in the Academy. You have the option to study on our front-end, back-end coding, full stack and data analytics programmes. We will introduce you to professional software development practices and you will work on a project to transform a customer specification into a software package in language that is understandable to a computer.
Why not start, accelerate or change your career with one of our Coding Academies?
Applications now open. Apply today.
