Why you should consider pursuing IT Technician jobs

If you have an interest in IT Technician jobs on Job Mail, this blog post is for you! Today we tackle everything from what these professionals do to the IT Technician salary you can expect in South Africa.

What is an IT Technician?

An IT technician, or Information Technology technician, works in the field of computer and technical support. IT technicians are responsible for keeping computer and other information technical systems up and running at all times. IT technicians often work behind the scenes, but are essential to our world today to keep any computer based machine operational.

What does an IT Technician actually do?

An Information technology technician can have a range of job responsibilities depending on where he or she works and what kind of information systems he or she is able to work with.

An IT technician may have to work with a wide scope of systems ranging from large networks of computer systems, such as in an office, microcomputers, local area networks, internet security, software, project management, databases, and many more.

With this, it is important that IT technicians are very familiar with a wide range of computer types and types of software and operating systems such as Windows, Linux, Apple iOS, DOS, amongst others.

What you can expect from IT Technician jobs

To be the perfect match for IT Technician jobs on Job Mail, you must enjoy learning. It is essential that an IT technician stays on the cutting edge of information technology so that they are prepared to take on any job. Job tasks may range from fixing entire computer systems, setting up secure connections, running maintenance for a computer or group of computers, repairing broken connections, maximising computer system efficiency, creating or maintaining databases, taking apart and fixing a computer, and many other duties.

IT jobs in this field will vary based on experience and the type of employment. Those who are in-house IT technicians will be responsible for maintaining and regulating one system. This may mean that he or she will oversee all of the computer-based systems running within one organisation and maintaining each and every computer on the network him or herself.

Some IT technicians choose to work for computer companies or are self-employed and are on-call or accept appointments. Technicians who works on-call must be ready to quickly assess a situation on the job and act. An IT technician in this space will be called to different sites for different tasks such as fixing a broken internet connection or installing new software across all computers company wide.

Junior IT technician jobs make up another component in the career ladder. Junior technicians are support technicians who aid other technicians and companies with tasks such as troubleshooting or installation.

Companies will often hire in-house junior technicians to help maintain their computer systems in a support role. Many junior technician jobs are at companies looking for some help maintaining their systems.

If you want to get started in this career, or do not have as much experience as required, starting out in junior IT Technician jobs are a great option.

Which industries do IT Technicians work in?

IT technicians, although in the information technology labour realm, work in many different industries- basically any industry that uses a computer!

It jobs for technicians are available in finance, education, hospitality, non-profits, for governments, computer companies, healthcare- wherever the job needs to be done. IT technicians can specialise in different systems- for example, one can do their best work setting up and maintaining databases that are used in hospitals or non-profits.

Another may be most knowledgeable when it comes to installing security features to secure a bank’s internet security. There is quite a bit of flexibility in the career of an IT technician!

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What training is required and where should you train in South Africa?

If you want to embark on a stimulating career as an IT technician, you have a few options:

Certificates in Information Technology will grant you eligibility for entry-level IT technician jobs. A certificate in information technology will give you basic skills in office computing, software, web development, and business. This should suffice for most junior technician jobs. A certificate will take about one year to attain.

A diploma in information technology will give learners in-depth, academic and practical knowledge on the IT field. One can also study information technology at any university. Attaining a BTech in Information Technology will take three to four years. One can expect to study subjects such as computer security, database systems, development software, software engineering, and programming.

IT is a huge field and therefore a subject that is available at most universities and technical colleges throughout South Africa.

Secondary school learners who want to one day enter a career in Information Technology as an IT technician should pay attention, especially in the subjects of mathematics, physical sciences, and computer applications.

Some helpful skills to have or develop that can help make you a great asset include logic skills, being good with your hands, problem-solving abilities, good eyesight, and patience. The complexities of a job in IT require you to call up technical knowledge to solve problems quickly.

If things go wrong or you are working with a complicated system, this can translate to long hours and stress. However, keeping on top of your game by understanding and knowing computer systems both new and old very well can help increase job satisfaction.

The IT Technician salary and building your career

The IT Technician salary in South Africa is at about R92 266 per year. Based on a PayScale job satisfaction poll, many IT Technicians rate their job satisfaction at “extremely satisfied.” PayScale also notes that this is an overwhelmingly male dominated field, so ladies, get out there!

Career prospects are good for the IT field as a whole- even better than for most industries. As new technologies arise we will need people who understand it to maintain and introduce it to us on a personal and/or an organizational level.

As technology expands, we will still need those who are capable to maintain our existing systems and to help us to merge all of our information from old systems to new systems. There is a huge need for IT technicians and as long as computer systems exist, IT technicians will too. IT jobs aren’t going anywhere!

Junior IT technician jobs will also need to be filled as workloads increase for IT specialists and technicians. Junior technicians will likely begin to take on the more hands-on jobs needed as the higher-level work will go to the more experienced IT technicians.

An IT Technician as well as Junior IT Technicians are important members of our workforce as they keep our computer systems running and on the cutting edge.

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If you would like to become a key player in one of the world’s fastest growing careers, find IT Technician jobs on Job Mail. Register your CV and apply for great vacancies today!