Web Developer
Freelance

info Issues viewing the video?

accessibility Video accessibility options

	ANDREW S
00:02	My name’s Andrew, a freelance web developer who works on quite a few different clients’ websites. Most of the clients are companies that I’ve worked for before or people that I’ve met.
00:14	One is my previous company, which is called Stonewash Limited and they make a magazine framework for the iPad and iPhone, so yeah.
00:27	I got into web development, probably because of my dad’s technical abilities. Back then I used to go a lot with him to do a lot of electronic call work. We used to fit car stereos into cars and stuff like that, so I got into the whole web development arena, because of my technical background.
00:49	I was always a bit of a trouble maker in class, trying to be funny all the time, I mean, education-wise I probably wasn’t the brightest person in the class. I probably was better at certain schools than others. Yet again, my technical background seemed the better path for me, so my electrical engineering class, I was probably one of the better ones in that class but in maths, English and a lot of the other subjects, didn’t do anything well at all, no.
01:21	I think my teachers would be proud of me actually. I think they were proud to know that. as much as I behaved like a clown in class, I’ve turned out to be something in life, rather than be in a circus act.
01:37	When I left school, I left school in Jamaica, that’s where I went to high school, when I left high school, I came to England to live with my mum cos my mum had moved there and I went to Hackney Community College to do an engineering course. During that course, in my second year, got involved with the wrong crowd and dropped off the course, coming to the close of the second year.
02:03	I found myself at home, not doing too much, getting bored watching TV and all that and I just thought, let me find something that I really enjoy, that will give a meaning to my life and I started going on the internet, looking at websites and stuff. I mean, back then websites just started becoming a big thing, I started getting into web technology and stuff and I started reading up a lot on bits and pieces and then I built my own websites.
02:32	I mean back then we had stuff like Geocities, which allowed you to create your own domain name and just choose a template and I thought that was wow, this is quite brilliant I can make a website, you know, and from there on started to look more into the whole website development thing and felt that I had an interest in it, so I started to delve deeper into it more and more.
02:55	My first big job after Hackney probably came about three years later. When I finished Hackney Community College I went on to doing an HND at Barnet College and on my HND course I had a classmate who, we were always competitive in class towards each other. I thought that he was my arch enemy, you know, and I had to be better than him and somehow we kept in contact when we finished.
03:24	I got a job in a small company in Colindale. I phoned my friend up to say do you want to come and work with us, where I am now, and he said to me, by the way, this friend is my arch rival, I phoned him to up to say, you know, come and work with me and he said, no, do you want to come and work with me at this company and I took his offer up and that’s when I started working at larger companies.
02:48	I think one of the projects I’m probably most proud of is the John Lewis website. I worked on it about five, no about three years ago and I worked on it for about six months but the website didn’t come to life until two years after I left the company. So I think that’s one of my most prized work, purely because the team I worked in, they were very enthusiastic, they were around my age as well, all of the guys.
04:22	The guy who was leading the project, he was around the same age as me and he was very helpful, I learned a lot from it and I think it was, the company itself as well, I was working at John Lewis’ headquarters, the company, it’s a really lovely company, they had lovely staff and I enjoyed the whole experience
04:42	I think anyone who wants to get into web development, my advice would be, you have to love it to be able to do it. I mean it comes with a lot of hard work and a lot of heavy mind work. I think that that’s the way to put it. I think you don’t physically work too much, but your mind is always at work, so I think anyone who wants to do it has to find that it’s something that they’re going to enjoy and something that they want to do, cos if it’s all just for the money, after a while the whole money effect will wear off and I think if you don’t enjoy it, then you shouldn’t be doing it.
05:21	End of Andrew S

Andrew left Jamaica after school and moved to England where is began a college course in Engineering. Although he dropped out of the course it sparked in an interest in technology and he started to teach himself about building website. This led him to a number of short courses in web development and a future career as a freelance developer.

More information about Web design and development professionals

Data powered by LMI For All

£33,800

average salary

The UK average salary is £29,813

average weekly hours

There are 37.5 hours in the average working week

70% male

30% female

The UK workforce is 47% female and 53% male

Future employment

Future employment?

Description

? Jobholders in this unit group design, develop and maintain websites to meet a client’s specified requirements.

Qualifications

Entrants usually possess a degree or equivalent qualification, although entry with other academic qualifications and/or significant relevant experience is possible. There is a variety of relevant vocational, professional and postgraduate qualifications available.

Tasks

Liaises with internal/external client in order to define the requirements for the website;
Presents design options to the client;
Designs web pages including graphics, animation and functionality to maximise visual effectiveness and facilitate appropriate access;
Develops the website and applications;
Designs and develops web interfaces for relational database systems;
Establishes methods to ensure appropriate website security and recovery;
Writes and publishes content for the website;
Tests website interaction and performance prior to going ‘live’, and monitors and maintains functionality of the website;
Activates the ‘live’ website.