Coding course changing lives and business

Posted: 13/10/2015

The third Digital Jersey Coding Programme is now closed for applications. The six month vocational learning course aimed at developing the skills need...

The third Digital Jersey Coding Programme is now closed for applications. The six month vocational learning course aimed at developing the skills needed for an entry-level position in the digital sector will be starting in January. Next application window will be advertised.

Jersey, in common with many other jurisdictions, has a skills gap when it comes to digital and technology workers. A recent Skills Survey run by Digital Jersey has found that coding is one of the top requirements for local tech industries in the island. Meanwhile, by 2017 the UK is estimated to need an additional 745,000 digitally skilled workers and one million by 2020.

The course isn’t just helping businesses get the staff they need, it’s a route to a profitable new career for the right candidates. Carla Harris, Director, Digital Jersey, “We want to solve the talent pipeline problem for businesses and give those hungry for a role in tech, an opportunity. It’s a chance for those who love coding but haven’t been through the traditional route – science, maths, university, a chance to get the right skill fit for the tech sector.”

British software engineers in the UK earn on average more than £50,000 a year with just up to three years of experience behind them – that figure jumps to around £74,000 in the San Francisco area, according to data from Hired, a tech industry jobs site.

All of the graduates of the first coding programme now work in the industry, and seven of the second programme, who graduated on November 3rd, have already found work.

You can see what this year's graduates think about the course in our video below.

The course is Industry validated and taught by four highly experienced mentors from Jersey’s tech community. Tom Hacquoil, Rob Dudley, Matt Chatterley and Tom Luce. The mentors work in the industry and have developed the course with Digital Jersey.

Applications for the third Digital Jersey Coding programme  closed November 9th.

Interviews 16th to 27th November. Successful applicants will be informed by December 1st and the course will start on January 12th, 2016.

 

Tom Hacquoil

Tom is Head of Software Development at Calligo, and a member of the Digital Jersey Education and Skills Technical Action Group. He has worked freelance for both local and international companies, including FTSE 100 businesses, and was formerly Managing Director of his own web development and hosting business, Infuse Internet.

 

Rob Dudley

Rob is a local software developer and CTO of the Sports Tech startup Race Nation.  A firm believer in developing the island's technology community he has been a mentor with the Digital Jersey Coding Program for the last two intakes and also mentors younger techies at the Jersey Coders after school club for 11-16 year olds. One of the founders of Tech Tribes, Rob also helps organize the HackJsy hackathon series and speaks at local, national and international events.

 

Matt Chatterley

Matt has been programming since his first 'type-in' BASIC listing at the age of 4 – and has been doing it for a living for over 15 years. Over that time he's worked in a number of roles ranging from Third Line Support to Software Architect, as well as in Management, in a number of verticals including Hospitality and Telecoms. Currently he's owner and director of Codentia Ltd, a software development consultancy based in Jersey. With a professional background primarily in Databases and Performance Tuning, Matt mainly works with ASP.NET, C# and PHP as well as SQL Server and MySQL. He's a big fan of WordPress and an advocate of Open Source. Outside of work, Matt is a member of the collaborate.je committee, who are responsible for organising 'HackJsy' – Jersey's twice yearly Hackathon – as well as other community events.

 

Tom Luce

Tom Luce is the Lead Developer for Calligo.  He gained a Masters in Chemical Engineering from Cambridge in 2009 and spent two years working as a mechanic and playing online poker semi-professionally. During this time he taught himself how to code and wrote a piece of software that analysed e-gaming traffic in order to aid game selection.  The software business focusses on managing the continued professional development of other professional poker players. After freelancing in web development with Infuse for two years, he joined Calligo in 2013. Tom helps run a team working using the Ruby on Rails development stack.

 

Contact:

Gwyn Garfield-Bennett

[email protected] 

+44 (0) 1534 828 587

 

 

 

Coding Programme Graduation from Digital Jersey on Vimeo.

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