It's clear nowadays: There's absolutely no personal job security anywhere now; there can only be market and business security - companies can just drop any single member of staff whenever it suits the company's business interests. In times of rising skills shortfalls together with areas of high demand of course, we generally reveal a fresh type of security in the marketplace; as fuelled by the constant growth conditions, businesses just can't get enough staff.

Taking a look at the Information Technology (IT) industry, the recent e-Skills study highlighted a twenty six percent shortfall of skilled workers. Meaning that for every 4 jobs in existence across the computer industry, there are barely three qualified workers to do them. Fully taught and commercially accredited new professionals are therefore at a total premium, and it looks like they will be for a long time to come. In reality, gaining new qualifications in IT as you progress through the coming years is very likely the greatest career choice you could ever make.

It's important to realise that even the most effective web-design programs can only teach you the methods & processes - not one can turn you into a bona fide web designer. All through your training and study, you must apply yourself to building and creating as many websites as you can, to prepare and assemble your own portfolio. Create sites about a special interest, your dog, a favourite music group or even TV programme. Start to build inter-active sites & create 'traffic' to them. 'Adobe' accreditations are of help, but how you can use what you've learned says much more about you as a web designer!

Watch out that all qualifications you're working towards are commercially relevant and are current. 'In-house' certificates are usually worthless. You'll discover that only industry recognised examinations from the top companies like Microsoft, Adobe, CompTIA and Cisco will have any meaning to employers.

In first place for the most common difficulty in IT training is a requirement to attend multiple workshop days. Many training schools harp on about the so-called 'benefits' of these classes, usually though, they end up as a major problem because of:

- Constant journeys to the workshops - normally 100's of miles.

- If you work for a living, then Mon-Fri classes represent a difficulty in getting time off. You're usually looking at at least 2, if not 3 days in a row.

- Most of us end up feeling 20 days holiday per year is barely enough. Spend over half of it for educational workshops and see how much more difficult it makes things.

- Workshops fill up quickly and often end up larger than is ideal.

- Workshop pace - centre-days invariably contain trainees of varying aptitude, consequently tension can run high between students that want a quicker pace to those with less experience.

- Never overlook the increased expense of arranging transport or accommodation over-night either. Often, this will cost a lot of money - from hundreds to thousands. Do the maths yourself - you'll get a shock.

- Study privacy can be high on the list of priorities to most attendees. Why would you want to sacrifice potential advancement, income boosts or accomplishment at your current job because you're getting trained in a different area. If your work discovers you're taking steps towards qualification in another area entirely, what do you think they'll do?

- Posing questions in the presence of other class-mates sometimes makes any one of us a little awkward. Have you ever left a question un-asked as you honestly thought you might seem thick?

- If you sometimes work elsewhere in the country for several days at a time, consider the added problems of making the required events, when time is at a premium.

An altogether more elegant solution is based on viewing a pre-filmed lesson - enabling you to learn whenever you wish. Do them at home on your computer or if you've got a laptop, you can go anywhere. Any questions; then utilise the 24x7 Support (that should've been packaged with any technical type of training.) Simply go back and re-cover all the learning modules whenever you feel you need to. There's absolutely no need to jot down any notes because the class is available whenever you want it. Whilst there's no way this can take away every little difficulty, it undoubtedly makes things easier, simpler and less stressful. And you've reduced travel, costs and hassle.

Usually, trainers will provide a big box of books. It's not a very interesting way to learn and not ideal for remembering. Studies in learning psychology have shown that we remember much more when we receive multi-sensorial input, and we get physically involved with the study process.

The latest audio-visual interactive programs utilising video demo's and practice lab's beat books hands-down. And they're a lot more fun to do. Any company that you're considering must be pushed to demo a few examples of their courseware. You should hope for instructor-led videos and a wide selection of interactive elements.

Pick CD and DVD ROM based physical training media if possible. This then avoids all the potential pitfalls with broadband 'downtime' or slow-speeds.

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