Staggering, I work in London and having spent the last hour looking around on the web, I can see the princely total of 1 php training course in the UK (and that's not till August). Would anyone happen to have details of any that I've missed?

Many thanks,
Johan

    What?! There are PHP training courses?!

    I doubt you'll find many, I looked once and couldm't find any. Then I realised that all I needed was the manual, phpbuilder.com , devshed.com and this forum.

    If that isn't enough, don't waste you money on a course, just nip down your nearest Waterstones/Ottakers/Blackwells/WHSmith (delete as applicable) and pick up a book. I wouldn't spen too much thouhg, as the books don't tend to be brilliant, you'll get far more off the web.

    I learnt enough of the web to get me a full-time PHP job!

    -- Nick Gushlow

      Hi Nick & Johan

      I agree - the books give a basic grounding in techniques if you can sift through the organization of the code. These which can be supplemented with specific coding problems from the web / forum help!!

      Nick - how do you rate employment prospects here in London / UK PHP-wise. I was working in C++ and found the transition to PHP / MySQL lovely stuff. Just finishing off my a new PHP/MySQL driven site and I am looking for a full time position in London.

      Any advice is very welcome.

      Thanks
      Michael

        Hi Micheal,

        Well I managed to get a php job on the basis of teaching myself some php for my dissertation. I had no professional programming experience!!

        You'll find it difficult to get a 'pure php' job. Mine is combined with the usual suspects (perl, javascript, etc) plus some sysadmin of Linux boxes.

        Do a search on jobsite.o.uk, jobserve.co.uk and planetrecruit.com

        They are all you need. Most of the php jobs are in London or up North.

        My advice would be to look for a company that is very well established (5+ years) or one that hasn't expanded at some astonishing rate in since it started. I had an interview last year with a company that went from 1 to 40 employees in 9 months!!

        And the other thing is to remember you don't need to know all they expect you to as this forum is never very far away!! :-)

        Let me know how you get on.

        -- Nick Gushlow.

          Hi Nick

          Many thanks for the useful advice and very fast response - I appreciate that a lot.

          Look forward to seeing whats going on and I'll keep in touch to let you know how things go.

          Best wishes

          Michael

            Personally, I fell into my current php job by accident - I'm experienced at website design and maintenance with all the usual skillsets, one of which, because I also run the http://wotmud.org/ website, is php. So when I was made redundant from my old dotcom (yick, careful of those), I was recruited by a company that is seeking a web frontend for an oracle database application. The frontent uses php, 'nuff said. I found it by using agencies, and when they ask you for skillsets I'd added php.

            Incidentally, I've found a course in London, I think. There's a company called "Cyberia Corporate Services", who, when I mailed back, told me: ... I am glad to inform you that we offer the php training at Cyberia. However we only offer this course as a closed course for up to six delegates. Their url is http://www.theinternetcompany.co.uk/training

              A closed course for up to six delegates? Have you got five other PHP coders (or wannabes) at your company?

              I notice they don't quote prices, and being closed courses (ie. usually paid for by the company not the person) I dare say they cost the earth.

              I'd be interested to know the price and the syllabus, post it up here if you ever find out.

              -- Nick Gushlow

                ... unfortunately, there are only two of us who want/need to do the course. This probably makes it unaffordable, unless anyone else is interested?

                  2 months later

                  Did you guys ever find out the price for this? If you did could you let me know as there is a possiblity that I have two people who are interested in attending such a course!

                  Cheers

                    6 days later

                    Hi, pardon the late reply, programmers need holidays too! In the end, we decided to go with a closed in-house course run by Well House Consultants (http://www.wellho.net/) - verdict when we've had it (middle of the month).

                    G'luck, Johan

                      Definitely be interested to hear how it went.

                      -- Nick Gushlow

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