Network engineer : Career development

Your career path will depend to a certain extent on the size of the organisation you work for and the scope of its IT systems. Having gained experience, network engineers can progress to network management positions or, with additional training, transfer into other IT roles, such as project management.

Those who start as help-desk technicians can sometimes progress to network engineer posts, then on to senior network support and finally network controller (mainly involved in decision-making, staff management and advice on future strategy). This may be a typical career ladder in an organisation such as a large bank or a major government department. If you work for a small company, you may be the network controller from day one and also have many other IT and technical support-related responsibilities.

Network engineering and network support roles tend to move you away from programming, so if this is something you enjoy and want to keep up, you need to be aware of this before you commit yourself to a systems support roles.

Some network engineers choose to broaden their careers into other IT, customer-related or management functions. Customer relationship management is a possibility, especially if you enjoy the 'people' side of the work and are also interested in the overall development of the business.

A common career option is consultancy work as a network analyst, either with an IT consultancy firm or on a self-employed basis. If you work for a small consultancy, you may become involved in all aspects of sales, technical advice, network engineering and customer relations, or you may choose to work freelance.

There are also some opportunities to teach or train, although this may only provide part-time work, such as teaching evening courses.