Case Study

Jake takes career plunge and comes up coding

17 Jul 2023

Jake was only halfway through his humanities studies at college when he had a complete change of heart and decided to pursue a career in computer coding instead. His new direction was knocked off course, however, when Covid cutbacks saw him made redundant from his first IT job.

Jake enrolled on a four-week digital skills bootcamp delivered by CodeVerse under the Restart Scheme. For Jake it was another new beginning, having previously considered a career as a teacher.

He said: “I thought my life was pretty much mapped out but then my partner, who knew I had an interest in IT, suggested I should think about switching my ambitions in that direction.

“I had received good grades in the first year of my college course studying subjects such as psychology and sociology but thought, ‘I’m going to be brave and take the plunge’.

“It was, literally, a life-changing decision.”

After an apprenticeship studying coding languages, he landed an IT job with a private healthcare company but was made redundant as a result of Covid cutbacks, so jumped at the chance of the bootcamp.

Purposely challenging and aimed at a wide range of skill levels, the bootcamp at first seemed “fairly simple” to Jake as a result of his IT experience.

“It got a lot harder as it wore on,” he says, “but the pace was fair, with a couple of hours of online tuition a day, plus extra recommended activities.

“The training made it easier to understand how coding works and I can now go ahead and develop my knowledge and restart my digital career.

“Being fairly young, I’ve surrounded myself with technology all my life so making a living out of that is something I find very tempting.”

Jake was one of the bootcamp’s highest performers and attended an awards ceremony at Ingeus’s Hammersmith office.

He says: “Having CodeVerse at my back, with its connections and the possibility of finding work with them, and the continuing support of my Restart Advisor, I feel more confident about the future.”

As part of the awards event he met a representative of the London Digital Jobs and Skills Club, funded by the Mayor of London, who suggested he might be suited to provide IT support to a start-up company – an idea he welcomes.

He says: “Rather than a job where the first weeks involve reading 10,000 lines of code written by somebody else to look for a missing comma, it would be exciting to start off with a blank slate and be able to put your own stamp on a company.

“I’m open to all offers though!”