It's hard to credit it now, but 10 years ago, nobody had even heard of the term web designer - as a job it simply didn't exist. Today, however, web design is a major growth area - indeed, one of the fastest growing areas in the IT sector, according to Dermot Rogers, managing director of New Media CV, the Dublin-based web and multimedia recruitment company. According to a recent salary report produced by New Media CV, demand for e-business and web staff alone has nearly doubled. "There is strong evidence of increased investment by companies driving larger scale, more ambitious projects and highly competitive remuneration and benefits packages," the report notes.
The future, too, looks good. According to Rogers, the demand for staff in the area is set to continue. "A lot of companies are still in the early stages of web development," he says. "There's still a long way to go." Ireland is fast becoming a centre for website design, notes Bryan Maguire, head of science at the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology. "Irish companies are beginning to attract a lot of international business," he says. Web design can be as simple or as complex as you wish. "It could involve simply writing a basic code to put a website on the Internet," explains Joan Gallagher, head of the multimedia department at Senior College Dun Laoghaire. "Or you could be involved in the whole process from doing the layout, graphics, scanning in the images to developing a site that would be capable of doing e-commerce."
There are a number of commercial packages on the market, including Microsoft's Frontpage and Macro Media's Dreamweaver, which write the programmes for you as you type in the information. However if you want to become a professional, you need to do a course, Gallagher says.
"You learn how to do a multitude of tasks which go into developing a site." She warns, though, that technological skills alone are not enough. "You need to be creative and visual. It's important that you can come up with the ideas. We find that people with good English essay writing skills, for example, can do well. They're used to writing and their ideas flow."
Many of the people coming into the business are doing so with multimedia certificates and diplomas obtained on PLC programmes or in the ITs. Since it is a relatively new area, new courses are coming on stream regularly. Meanwhile, some people have opted to combine, say, an arts degree with multimedia training. However, according to experts, young people coming out of college with diplomas and little commercial experience can still command starting salaries of around £14,000 per annum.
"People with training and the right attitude can command salaries of between £14,000 and £18,000 per year," says Dermot Rogers. "People with a diploma in multimedia and other skills, experience or an arts degree, say, can earn more." And the good news is that website design is still an area where you can do well without a degree. What's important is ability and attitude. "If you're bright, positive and compatible and do your job well, you'll be given more complex tasks and greater opportunities for training," Rogers says. "Promotion is based in merit - if you do the job well, you'll get great opportunities for career development."
