4 of the Best Software Programs to Learn for an IT Career

1.5 million employees currently work in the IT industry, but the sector still needs an estimated 150,000 new entrants every year. Could you be one of them? From web designers to database administrators, there are many rewarding and lucrative IT jobs open to you if you have the right skill set. We take a look at five of the best software programs to consider learning if you want to kick-start your IT career.

Used by: data analysts, database administrators, application support analysts, oracle developers, software developers.

Research from IBM shows that we create approximately 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day, much of which is gobbled up by companies that are keen to gain insights into their business and their customers. Storing and organising this data in databases allows companies to manage, retrieve and analyse it effectively. Database software also protects the information in databases, ensuring that it’s consistent and accurate.

The software company Oracle began making systems for storing data in the seventies, and their database management system is now the world’s most popular. Oracle’s database is a relational one, which means that relationships are maintained between the different tables into which the data is organised.  

The programming language you’ll need to master Oracle and other relational databases is SQL (Structured Query Language). SQL makes it easy to manipulate data and it’s also the language used in other database software such as MySQL and Microsoft’s  SQL Server.

Knowing your way around programming languages is just one of the things to bear in mind if you’re thinking of studying IT. Find out what else you’ll need here.

Used by: data analysts, Excel specialists, data administrators and project managers.

Excel spreadsheets are used to display financial information and other types of data. In a business context they can be used to calculate profit and loss, work out repayment plans, keep employee records,  manage financial data and much more. Built-in templates include calendars, planners, balance sheets and financial reports.

If you’ve already come across spreadsheets you’ll know that they use grids of cells within columns and rows to manipulate, organise and perform calculations with data. The data can consist of numbers, text or formulas and Excel’s AutoSum tool is able to add, count or find the average for a particular column, row or group of cells.

This clever software program also carries out ‘what if’ analysis, which involves finding out how data is affected if one variable is changed. In addition, Excel sorts data in order to find particular information and imports data that needs to be analysed.

One of the most useful aspects of Excel is that it enables users to present data in a visually interesting way. You can choose to present it as a pie chart, a doughnut chart or a bar graph, and you can also highlight particular cells by making their contents colourful, bold or italic.

Employees in many different industries need a basic understanding of Microsoft Excel, but if you want to become an IT professional, you’ll need to move beyond the basics.

Used by: SEO specialists, website designers, digital analysts and data scientists.

Google Analytics provides insight into how visitors find a particular website and how they behave once they’ve arrived. These insights can help business owners to track the success of their online marketing and improve their website’s conversion rate.

Once a website owner has installed Google Analytics they can access the Google Analytics dashboard. This shows a range of useful data relating to website traffic, usability and performance.  Here are some of the main features that are measured.