[jamesmus]

I started out about 25 years ago and I suppose all I can do is to reiterate that nobody has ever asked if I have a degree. I don't really have a good handle on what the IT job market is like for people who are less experienced, TBH, so whether that information is actually useful or not I don't know. I still think it's worth applying anyway. I have worked in places where job ads have gone out for the same role I was already doing and after reading those ads I would have come to the conclusion that I was not qualified to apply. Basically my take is that people love to load those ads up so that they look impressive. When I interview what I want to know about a candidate is: are they smart and can they get stuff done? Anything else is secondary, really.

Location is probably a factor too. I am based near London and there are a lot of dev jobs around here. If you are regional then that may not be the case.

[gshdg]

Fwiw, degrees were rarer in the software candidate pool 25 years ago, and become increasingly irrelevant as your career progresses. Once you hit about 5 years of experience, the amount of attention anyone pays to it nosedives.

These days, getting those first five years is harder, though. Because of a combination of a glut of juniors on the market plus a culture where it’s increasingly common for employees to stay only a year or so, which makes it less worthwhile for a company to invest in training juniors.