Advice for Starting IT Career

33 hours of an Introduction to Programming course is extremely unlikely to land you a 60k role inside 2 years unless you have a real talent for coding and/or have other experience. Starting positions for those with a 3 year IT degrees tend to be in support / QA roles and are still in the mid to high twenties starting off in most places which a decent worker will get up into the 40s in 2/3 years. The 60k graduate roles you hear about on social media are few and far between and are the preserve of exceptional performers who will not only likely have a 3/4 year degree (or even a masters), they'll also likely have published projects of their own on github and the likes, contributed heavily to open-source projects or have gained relevant experience over the course of their degree (perhaps via an intern placement turning into a part-time role).

Most likely the country you go to will have a housing crisis in their cities as well. And will have a tradition of renting rather than buying homes. That is becoming more prevalent in Dublin as well.

The majority of tech roles start in the 30s or even high 20s. Most people with a programming degree do not work in programming and they are not even vaguely suitable as training for most actual tech roles.

A 60k programming role would be for a 4 year degree and experience; not a Java diploma from a private college.

Bugger all 30 year olds own one on their own these days.

youll still be on them if ya manage to last in IT if you think you'll make a quick buck!

Stop listening to your siblings (who are vastly older than you and were your age in massively different economic and social environments)

A get-rich-quick scheme by changing careers is even less likely than one that relies on winning the Lotto.

I don't think there are any industries where you can go from no experience and training to earning 55K in 3 years.

Good luck, changing careers is not easy but you can do it if you put your mind to it. You literally have the sum total of human discovery at your fingertips and no end of eejits on YouTube and Udemy willing to share that knowledge either for free or a relatively small fee. Personally I would have recommended getting as far as you can with the free/cheap stuff before doubling down on the expensive accreditation needed to get the big boy jobs.

Personally I know a fair few lads in their 30s earning not much more than 35k doing complicated network based IT stuff and I also know lads earning €60k+ doing relatively basic IT stuff.

It entirely depends on how skilled you are, how good your qualifications are, how good your network is, and what company you work for and have worked for. A mate of mine recently left a "Big 4" company for a position with double the wage and half the work because the company he moved to are making serious money at the moment. He's earning more than his old manager even though his new job consists of troubleshooting basic hardware issues. He's put himself in a bit of a hole because he wont be able to get that kind of money elsewhere, but it seems like a nice hole to be stuck in. He would not have gotten that job with just his qualifications, but his pedigree of working for said company got him noticed on LinkedIn and in the door in about a week.

If you want big bucks, the up and coming roles are gonna be data scientists, you'll need an MSc to get the €100k though. You can settle for a junior data analyst position 35-50k. Very achievable in a year and you can mine online data to create a portfolio to present in an interview or on Github or a personal site.

Don't mind the nay-sayers either. You will be entering a saturated market but you can definitely find your way. However put your dreams of owning a place in Dublin onto a more realistic track. You won't get there in the next few years, and you probably wont get there even on a basic IT salary.

Your last two sentences are your problem here.

I'm working in IT for over 15 years after doing a Business degree and a H Dip in Systems Analysis and wouldn't earn much more than your posited 60k, tbh, it's a little over 70k. (I did earn 6 figures for a period of contracting in London after a redundancy when I had about 7 years experience but with a young family at the time it really didn't suit my lifestyle so I came home to a lower paying permanent role).

Even with a fairly decent career in IT, I was 36 before I "owned" my own home (in reality, I'll be in my mid 60's by the time the mortgage is cleared and I'll actually own it and I'm in one of the cheapest parts of North County Dublin). If I'd have had your mindset, I'd have felt like a loser for years. Your expectations are simply too high for the times we live in. Most people buying homes are doing so as a dual income couple and your earnings are perfectly in line with that.

It's not the 1980's any more, houses aren't as cheap and a single salary is extremely difficult to raise a family on (trust me, I've been doing it for over a decade and it's meant that while I eventually managed to buy a house, I have no pension or savings whatsoever). Houses also aren't as cold, draughty or as expensive to heat either though and you won't have to sacrifice your first born if someone leaves the immersion on so comparing house prices now to what they were like back then isn't a very valid comparison.

Cut yourself some slack. Keep putting the effort in at work, look for better opportunities if they're under-paying you for your experience level, spend some time on your interests and try to find one that keeps you fit and healthy, give the dating apps a go or if that's not your thing get out to things that interest you and talk to people at them. Instead of comparing your life to that of those who've been more fortunate or successful, compare it to that of yourself a year ago: are you fitter, healthier, happier and wealthier than you were then? If yes, great! If not, figure out why not and work at that.

Have a look here: https://www.cpl.com/ie/salary-guide/technology-salary or here: https://www.archer.ie/it-salary-survey-ireland/ not 100% reliable but better than asking random people on the internet. You sound like a person who is trapped in a generational gap with a family that don't realize the world is a different place now. People can make a lot of money in IT but it's based on experience, not qualifications. Starting out as a Junior/associate level programmer will be challenging and some companies just don't have entry level positions.

Also, this business of "learn to code" is something I've heard often from the uninformed. The salaries aren't there in Ireland for knowing Java or Python of Scala, they are there for knowing how to design, engineering and develop software systems.

In the US they have this "bootcamp" concept. Literally a couple of months of classes

I knew a girl with no technical or IT background at all from her education who went to do one. I thought it was a scam but she did it and would be on well over $100k remote working now.

Basically the deal was that they'd train her but get a percentage of her wages for the next few years .............. but that was even if she went and worked in something completely unrelated

Wow,, sounds like I messed up picking DB Admin so. 😭

Nobody gives a crap about the DBA's, 😋 Export this DDL. Import that DDL. Change Jimmy's role. Who gives a sh1t except when they need you for something

They just stick you guys in the basement. Probably for good reason.😋

I was skeptical when she went but she can do all that Frontend and UI/UX stuff that I'd know nothing about

Probably for good reason yeah...

Suits me being paid to hang out in the basement though 😂

Basement is better than being offshored to India I suppose!

I think it is well paid in the US though!