So You Want To Be An IT Consultant
January 17, 2008 By Rob England
For those with the right qualities and skills, IT consulting is indeed a lucrative career option.
Consulting appeals to those who want to make a difference, or who want independence or more money. Or all of the above.
For the purposes of this article we consider independent consulting, but most of the article applies equally to those who prefer to stay safely in the embrace of paid employment as a consultant for a company (always known on business cards as a “Senior” or “Principal” Consultant).
Mostly though, consulting offers the dream of breaking free, of ttjasi (telling them to Take This Job and Shove It). And it delivers that, to those suited to it.
The IT industry has several attributes that make it attractive to work for yourself:
Shortage of skilled people – a seller’s market. There are high overall levels of under-employment (vacancies) in the IT industry. There are also many specialist niches where experience in some esoteric technology or process gives you a unique business value. Some of these niches are generated by new trends, e.g. Web 2.0 developer or ITIL Change Manager, and others by the opposite process – the aging workforce and legacy technologies, e.g. Cobol programmer or CICS systems programmer.
This shortage leads to high hourly rates of pay. On contract you can make in a few months what the average full-time worker earns in a year. You can either make a lot of money or take a lot of time off, depending on your approach and priorities.
Low requirements for qualification or certification. To build a bridge you must have the appropriate engineering registration, which in turn requires qualification, certification, experience and recognition. In IT we will give anyone a go. A piece of paper helps sometimes, but experience counts for much more. Even experience is not essential, so long as you have the chutzpah to stand up and say you know the way.
High levels of on-the-job training by employers. Compared to other industries, IT employers of full-time staff are willing to pay for a lot of training. If training is useful or certification is desirable for your planned consulting career, it is often possible to get all the training you need while still in full-time employment.
High levels of change, especially projects. Consulting thrives on change. Change introduces uncertainty and people look for answers. Change introduces peaks in workload, so temporary additional resources are required. And projects release funds, which consultants are happy to mop up.
As a result, anyone working in IT is usually well-paid and has useful knowledge, which puts us in good shape to consider self-employment. Whatever you choose to do, you need three assets:
A strong financial position. There may well be a dip in income as you establish yourself. And there is always the risk, however small, that it just won’t work. IT people tend to have lower debt levels and more financial reserves to help justify the risk and weather the initial impact.
A unique business value: an uncommon area of knowledge and experience.
Basic business knowledge. You run a business now, so you have to be able to cope with accounting, cash flow, record-keeping and compliance.
There are a number of options open to you to work for yourself in IT. Ignoring some of the more esoteric ones such as developing a software product or launching a website or writing, there are two main sectors; consulting and contracting. People often confuse the two because consultants usually work to contracts.
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