Birdcr,

first off, which part of the UK? If you're in my area I may know a few people worth talking to.

Secondly, from personal experience, I'd recommend taking a look at any co-location data centre in your area. Generally you get to experience *everything* the IT profession can through at you. Gives you the chance to try everything and determine exactly which part of the field interests you most.

Good luck with your upcoming exams.

RR

Sorry Boss, wrong end of the country for me.

Take a look at Blue Square Data, they've just built some new data centres in your part of the world and are/were (not sure of timescales) looking for staff. Similar position to mine, so I can vouch for it being a good starting point in the industry for those fresh out of Uni.

My job title, officially, is Hosting Engineer.

Role is, *everything* I/We (small team) handle network administration, Linux/Windows admin and support, pre-sales technical consultancy, internal/external security policy (ISO27001 framework), troubleshooting, incident handling, bespoke solution design and implementation, the list goes on....
As I said it is a great way to get your feet wet.

Salary starts about where you'd expect for a fresh graduate (sorry, no specifics), but from experience there is a huge potential to gain experience rapidly and prove your abilities. If you're good and work for a good employer you should be able to increase your position and earnings failing quickly (although this may be limited by the current climate).

Generally there are a large number of data centres in the London (and surrounding) areas. London/South England is outside of my comfort zone, but you could take a look at TeleHouse, RedBus or 2e2. Alternatively most of the 'service providers' and 'outsources' will have some level of hosting provision.

If you've got a local BCS group might be worth getting to the next event and asking questions there, attendees to the BCS usually have a fair number of contacts in every field so are good people to know for local knowledge.

Hope this helps, good luck in the hunt.

Good luck, if you want/need some additional insight on some specifics after you've done some research give me a shout and I'll help out where I can.

i have very little experience with Linux at the moment and a lot of jobs i am looking into require a good knowlege of Linux, im a little busy at the moment finishing off my net+ and CCNA and thinking of sec+ and CEH after, would it be worth trying to learn to use Linux by playing around with it or studying for say Linux+ and should i try doing that now as i seem to be working constantly out of work on other certifications? i understand linux is really worth knowing and you cant really get around the security field without knowing it but not sure when to study it as obviously a CCNA will get a job much more than linux knowlege, has anyone done the Linux+? is it difficult?