Which route would be best do you? Working for a firm like Accenture or IBM or CSC or working in the IT dept of a large company in terms of career progression and money and gaining experience

Accentire would be my choice. I would not work for IBM. IT dept of a large company would give a very slow career progression.

Its not the 'Company' its the 'Unit' if your in services and competing with 3rd world countries for scraps, your F&cked whether your Acc or IBM.If your in Software Sales and in IBM then thats better than Accenture.Think before you open your mouth :)And IT is not a career, its like a toilet cleaner, nobody wants to do it, pay for it...Someone has to and it had best be cheap......

Work in an IT consultancy - expect it to be more demanding but there are a lot of work skills which you simply will not get if you work in an internal IT function. Perhaps what is worse is you will not know what you don't know.Pickup up on taxman's comments. - At IBM you end up either a sales exec or a proj exec. The former can be quite bright.- If you are going to work in IT (and progress), you need to be able to manage outsourced IT. Whatever anybody tells you, it does all go 100% offshore. Learn how to do the onshore bit well - it is difficult and not something you can learn on an MBA either as it is about relationship management. If you become a coder, yes you are f*(ked- He is also right in saying IT is not a career, it is a job. On the positive side, like toilet cleaning it results in something tangible that people are willing to pay for. As a northerner once said ... where there is muck there is brassFinally, If I was starting in out in IT, I'd opt for ACN.

Thanks for your comments guys.May I ask, why you think IT is not a career? Would it be worthwhile to do something other than IT as a career? I am only looking into IT because I believe it will pay well and because I don't know what else to do.

there are easier ways of making money.you should have a more positive view of your career. i work on custom app development projects andi love it. for me the "career" element is related to the technical and managerial skills and achievements which I have set as goals, which include:-learn to manage an offshore team-develop my application architecture skills-develop my infrastructure design skills-develop my development processes skills -become a chartered engineer-sunset my consulting career and go into teaching

IT does not pay well, all the big players have diluted the quality pool by outsourcing, go read 'wealth of Nations'. If you can 'SELL' then yes go learn some IT, if your a coder then youll be redundant in your 30's.IT is NOT a career, and dont look on it as one, push code and those annoying hard things out to Mumbai where they make an ass of it, but never mind the quality, feel the cheapness :)If you ever get into a customer facing or consulting IT role where you sell and are responsible for delivery then thats a friggin goldmine, but alas nobody can work their way up anymore as there is no bottom to start from, only a bottom to stay in.If your young go learn to be a chemist, there will be a glut of old buggers soon :)