Careers in Computing
Many careers are currently available in British Columbia,
and across Canada and the United States.
Increasing demand for skilled IT/CS ("Information Technology/Computer Science") workers is being fueled both
by growth in the industry and increasing retirements as the
"baby-boomers" leave the workforce.
In many job categories, the growth rate for IT/CS jobs in the next
five years is expected to be twice the general growth rate - leading to
excellent opportunities for those with an interest in the area.
There exists a tremendous variety of career and life opportunities for
anyone with a strong interest in IT/CS. Some of the common choices
are listed in the Occupational Outlook Handbook put out by the Bureau
of Labor Statistics in the US; a more comprehensive list would include:
- software developer, software engineer
- webmasters, web managers, web designers, and web technicians
- database administrators and data architects
- system and business analysts
- system programmers and system testers
- hardware and software engineers
- network administrators and network technicians
- computer and network operators
- user support and technical support analysts
For those interested in a research or academic career, there are many fascinating fields of study,
including:
- artificial intelligence
- bioinformatics
- circuit design
- computational complexity
- computer networks and wireless communication
- databases and data mining
- distributed and parallel programming
- human-computer interaction
- object oriented computing
- real time systems
- robotics
- software engineering
For detailed descriptions of the different occupations, and for
BC forecasts of expected growth in each area, please visit
the WorkBC website.
Growth forecasts for Canada and the United States are available from
the Information and Communications Technology Council (for Canada) and from
the Bureau of Labor Statistics (for the U.S.A.).
For current high-tech job opportunities on Vancouver Island, please visit the
VIATeC Job Board.
For information on world-wide opportunities in Computing Science as
posted on the foremost world-wide organization of computer scientists, the
Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), visit the ACM careers website.