Field and occupation
You have an opportunity to apply for IT related tasks in working life, such as design, programming, marketing and maintenance, independent entrepreneurship and international tasks at export companies. Your future career may involve professional tasks of a product development engineer, project manager, IT specialist, programmer, electronics design engineer, telecommunication design engineer or a sales engineer.
Employment Situation
In recent years, companies offering data processing services, namely software design and production, information processing, consulting etc., have employed approximately 58 500 people, while telecommunications employed 16 500 people and ICT goods production 56 000 people (Labour Force Survey of Statistics Finland).
In addition to working for companies offering data processing services in the ICT cluster, there are IT professionals in the service of companies in other branches and public administration. In Finland, there are approximately 95 000 IT professionals in total (Finnish Information Processing Association, FIPA).
Most often students get their first job from the same employee they did their thesis for. In fact, most engineers get permanent employment immediately after graduation. Skilled engineers can earn remarkably high salaries right after graduation. Salaries start around 2 400–3 000 euros, and after ten years of work the average salaries are already over 3 600 euros. In addition to a good salary, considerable fringe benefits are also available.
Employment Prospects
In future, information and communication technologies are increasingly used in all sectors, as they can enhance productivity and improve the quality of products and services. Companies want their business operations to be as fast as possible. Due to productivity and cost efficiency demands, the use of information and communication technologies will also increase in the public sector, particularly in health care and education.
Companies will need more IT professionals in the future, as the importance of information technology and number of applications will increase. However, during economic recession new employees are not easily hired. The retirement of the baby boom generation will increase the demand for labour force in the coming years.
Demands of the Working Life
A person suitable to be an engineer has a desire to experiment, develop, apply and execute. An engineer has a natural aptitude for mathematics and science. An engineer masters physics and chemistry, and they are also excellent in putting their skills to use in developing new things.
An engineer has a curiosity to find out how things work and phenomena occur. An engineer is excellent in problem solving. That is the reason why engineers are continuously needed all over the place.
More and more diverse skills, like logic, creativity and social skills, are required of an engineer. Engineers have a unique ability to develop and create new things and also apply them into practice. When working in groups, good use is made of individual skills and different areas of expertise complement each other.
The importance of a high level education is increasing in the future, as competent staff is a central competitive factor. New skill sets are also needed as branches are merging. In addition to technical skills, also customer orientation, business competence, international business knowledge, command of production and cooperation networks, and social skills are emphasised.
