A new survey suggests that few IT managers are fulfilling their childhood dreams in their current roles.
IT staff were questioned at this year's Infosecurity show about what they perceived as their ideal professions when a child.
Only six per cent said that they had always wanted to work with computers. The most popular choice was airline pilot (14 per cent) followed by astronaut (nine per cent) and football player (eight per cent).
One respondent may have misunderstood the question as he said that he always wanted to be a seagull.
Tom Newton, product manager at SmoothWall, which sponsored the survey, said: "IT has always suffered an image problem, and those that wish to swell our ranks would rather be programmers or engineers.
"Today's network managers face a harder task than ever, so it comes as no surprise that at least one beleaguered soul would rather spread his wings and go nicking chips down the seafront."
Not so long ago, lad, this was all servers as far as the eye could see 13 May 2008
Great achievements celebrated, but still too few women in the IT industry 07 May 2008
Organisation in need of an image update, says IT training company 28 Mar 2008
New report from security giant details widespread attacks in 'cyber cold war' 28 Jan 2010
Environmental, financial and business concerns mean rise in unified comms, says IDC 27 Nov 2009
Cisco Gold partner grows sales past £50m and reveals plans to buy three foreign companies 05 Feb 2010
Breakthrough innovations in handset history 20 Feb 2010
Government announces extra £4.8m to support offshore wind R&D 18 Mar 2010
Secretary-General and climate envoy cross swords over the extent to which UN talks should be supported by separate negotiations between top polluters 18 Mar 2010
Price collapses to €1 as previously surrendered CERs surface on European exchange 18 Mar 2010
More news
As a journalist, I spend a fair amount of time defending the much maligned media industry to friends and families.... 18 Mar 2010
Andrew Williams casts his eye over some of the most popular green driving aids on the market 16 Mar 2010
From hydropower hot spots to record-breaking Texan winds, we run down the top stories from the past week 12 Mar 2010 More in-depth
Post your comment
Send an email to the Business Green editor at feedback@businessgreen.com
