State of design market in the UK

[Sponsi]

Hello,

I'm a Polish guy currently working as a teacher of English in Poland (I have MA in methodology of teaching English). ICT has been my big hobby for 15 years or so. Unfortunately, I'm not that good at maths and thus I haven't been able to take up some decent IT studies - I have only finished post-graduate studies in the basics of IT (I can teach ICT up to high school here in Poland).

I've been thinking about going to the UK to work at school (and teach ICT) and establish my own company (and then slightly switch from school to the company) - this would be a web hosting+web design company in some large city in the north of England (I love Liverpool! : ).

Anyway, for my main question here. This one goes to people from England and Scotland (my primary destinations).

What's the situation on the market? Is it full of web designers? What's better - to practice more DTP and printed stuff or stick with the web?
What's the level of trust towards newcomers, especially from the East? I will definitely work on my portfolio (to group everything in one place and present it in some nice way) but I don't know yet if I should (and whether I have some good chances) apply for a designer's job or start with teaching job plus freelancing.

Finally, is Xara recognized as a decent tool (in Poland it's very rare for agencies to know Xtreme) or is it just Photoshop and Illustrator? I'm quite strong with Xara and Corel but not so much with Adobe products (I use only legal software and Adobe is expensive as hell, in Poland it's 30 per cent more expensive than in the USA).

I know you might not welcome someone like me in your country (one might call me "competition") but I will be grateful for any pieces of advice you can provide me with.

I've talked to some agencies over the phone and I'm sending my papers to England soon in order to get the Qualified Teacher Status but I'd like to work with graphics as well.

Thank you in advance,

Milo, Poland

[pauland]

There are a LOT of web designers here and software developers - naturally some are better than others and there is certainly considerable competition, but there also seem to be jobs around too.

I mostly work from home, but in my excursions onsite to design agencies, Adobe rules. Period. I suspect that mentioning Xtreme and probably Corel from the start will damage your credibility - people expect that you use Adobe software.

Most often for work I do away from the agency environment, people supply me with artwork assets predominately in Photoshop and illustrator format. I tend to work on Flash projects and sometimes I do the graphics completely, other times I am given assets to work from. If I use Xtreme in the middle, they will never know.. ;-)

The web hosting/design market is fiercely competitive.

I think that ultimately, if you are talented and have good business sense and customer facing skills, then that will always win out against the mediocre.

With the existing economic climate, the UK isn't the easy opportunity place it used to be, but I can say that I have actually stopped actively seeking work this January - I have as much as I can cope with.

Paul

[Edit: this is just my view - I'm sure the situation varies around the country and I have no experience whatsoever of print design]

[zaphodeist]

I love Liverpool too, even though I'm exiled just south of Manchester! Not being in the business I couldn't say from experience, but from what I gather the North-West 'corridor' of Liverpool >> Warrington >> Manchester [40 miles] is the place to be for IT, Manchester having one of the biggest economies outside of London - without the expense! - and a large, well established, Polish community I believe. My heart would say Liverpool, my head would say Manchester [it's a wonderful place really, otherwise I wouldn't have stayed so long ]

There are problems with EU workers over here at the moment, but this is more with unskilled people.

PS Last time I looked, Adobe products were nearly twice as much in the UK!

[Sponsi]

Thanks for your replies, people, I really appreciate that : )

[Albacore]

The only jobs in Scotland at the moment is for Web development but you must have experience in PHP for the larger data driven sites. Last year many print jobs were lost as less and less people are reading and buying print based material.

There are no teaching jobs at the moment in IT or Computer Studies even the harder to teach schools as 84% of teachers who graduated two years ago have no jobs yet. Every graduate is given a temporary job for a year after leaving teaching college but then their contract is not extended. These statistics are for both primary and secondary teachers, secondary teachers fair better than primary at getting a job.

[pauland]

Hi Milo,

I'm a little surprised more people haven't contributed. One other thing I might mention is that there is often a request to see a portfolio of work or some samples of what you do. I have even had to sit programming tests a couple of times at interview for contract work.

Ironically, my wife is a teacher and sometimes suggests I should apply for ICT technical posts in school and I point out that my ancient Computer Science degree and more recent Adobe and Sun qualifications in programming wouldn't make me a suitable candidate. If I wanted to teach I'd have to get some new teaching qualifications. I'm not even sure if I'd be allowed to teach evening classes as I used to do twenty years ago.

Paul

[masque]

Work is undoubtedly thinner on the ground than it was 12/18 months ago. People (companies) are spending less and realising they can do with out leaflets and other printed material and small businesses are going to the wall in droves thus thinning out the potential market even more.
I’m lucky in that I provide a steady supply of menus to a number of, at the moment, still thriving restaurants particularly in the Birmingham Balti Belt (which if you don’t know what that is I won’t explain further here) and so I’m still making a reasonable living from that if not from elsewhere. I know that many printers and design freelancers in the so called creative quarters of Birmingham have disappeared in the last few months while others are still there and are seemingly thriving. It depends on who your customers are and how healthy they remain.
Given that I’m a one man show it’s easier for me and others like me to ride out the leaner times while there are some small agencies that suffer because of the greater overheads they have lumbered themselves with without taking into account that you still have to pay those overheads when the income dries up.
Derek (in the middle, south of Liverpool north of London)

[Sponsi]

Thanks for all your responses, your comments are really rich in information.
I haven't decided what to do but your views seem to be quite negative when it comes to my British direction : (

[pauland]

I think things are tough everywhere.

[masque]

The plain fact of the matter is that this country has, for the time being anyway, been completely screwed over by the combined actions of greedy inadequately regulated bankers and equally greedy self serving politicians under the leadership of the slack jawed unelected Scotsman. Bin Liner and his death worshiping henchmen could not do a job in any way as efficiently at bringing the country to the brink of ruin as the above bunch who continues to make out that everything is more or less ok.
People are still coming here in the hope of making a better life for themselves but in truth I would think that coming in from the outside and trying to carve a living in a depressed market would be soul destroying and very difficult in the present climate unless you have something unique to offer.
Derek
Sorry to sound so pessimistic.