Congratulations! Hitting upon this feature indicates you're probably thinking about your future, and if it's re-training you're considering you've even now progressed more than almost everybody else. Are you aware that hardly any of us are satisfied and happy at work - yet the vast majority of us will take no corrective action. Why don't you liberate yourself and move forward - those who do hardly ever regret it.

We recommend you seek advice first - find an industry expert; someone who'll give you career advice based on what works best for you, and analyse the courses that will suit you:

* Do you want to interact with other people? If so, do you like working with the same people or are you more comfortable dealing with strangers? Maybe you'd rather be left alone to get on with things?

* The banks and building sector are facing difficulties these days, so it's important to look very carefully at what sector would suit you best?

* Having completed your retraining, are you hoping your new skills will give you the ability to see you to retirement age?

* Would it be useful for the course you're re-training in to be in a market sector where you know you will be able to work until your pension kicks in?

A predominant industry in the UK to tick all of the above boxes is Information Technology. There's a need for more knowledgeable technicians in the industry, just search any jobs website and there'll be a long list. However, it's not full of techie geeks looking at their computerscreens all the time - there are loads more jobs than that. Large numbers of staff in this sector are ordinary people, with jobs they enjoy and better than average salaries.

Don't put too much store, as many people do, on the training process. Training is not an end in itself; you should be geared towards the actual job at the end of it. You need to remain focused on where you want to go. It's possible, in many cases, to find immense satisfaction in a year of study and then find yourself trapped for decades in a job you hate, entirely because you stumbled into it without the correct level of soul-searching at the beginning.

Stay tuned-in to what it is you're trying to achieve, and then build your training requirements around that - avoid getting them back-to-front. Stay on target and ensure that you're training for a career you'll still be enjoying many years from now. The best advice for students is to talk with an industry professional before following a particular study path. This gives some measure of assurance that it features what is required for the career that is sought.

If an advisor doesn't ask many questions - chances are they're just a salesperson. If they're pushing towards a particular product before looking at your personality and current experience level, then it's very likely to be the case. If you've got a strong background, or maybe some real-world experience (maybe some existing accreditation?) then it's likely the level you'll need to start at will vary from a student that is completely new to the industry. For those students starting IT studies and exams from scratch, you might like to break yourself in gently, kicking off with some basic user skills first. This is often offered with any study program.

Does job security honestly exist anywhere now? In a marketplace like the UK, with industry changing its mind whenever it suits, it seems increasingly unlikely. Of course, a sector experiencing fast growth, where there just aren't enough staff to go round (as there is a big shortfall of fully trained professionals), provides a market for lasting job security.

The most recent British e-Skills survey highlighted that 26 percent of all IT positions available haven't been filled mainly due to a lack of well-trained staff. Put simply, we only have the national capacity to fill 3 out of every four jobs in IT. Achieving full commercial computer accreditation is correspondingly a 'Fast Track' to realise a life-long and worthwhile livelihood. Undoubtedly, it really is such a perfect time to train for the computer industry.

Many trainers provide a big box of books. It's not a very interesting way to learn and not really conducive to taking things in. Memory is vastly improved with an involvement of all our senses - learning experts have been saying this for decades now.

Start a study-program in which you'll get a host of CD and DVD based materials - you'll be learning from instructor videos and demo's, and then have the opportunity to hone your abilities through virtual lab's. It's imperative to see some example materials from your chosen company. Be sure that they contain video demo's and interactive elements such as practice lab's.

Some companies only have access to training that is purely available online; and while this is acceptable much of the time, think what will happen when you don't have access to the internet or you get slow speeds and down-time etc. It's much safer to rely on actual CD or DVD ROMs which don't suffer from these broadband issues.

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