Finding a first junior IT job in the UK

Katerina Galkina · EN · 07/10/2026

Use more than one entry route

Do not restrict your first search to the title junior developer. Depending on your skills, consider trainee developer, graduate software engineer, software tester, technical support and application support. An adjacent role is useful when it includes relevant technical duties and a clear development route, rather than only a promise of a later move into coding.

The official software-developer profile ↗ describes university, college, apprenticeships and graduate schemes as different routes. A degree does not guarantee an interview, while lacking a British degree does not make every direct application impossible. Read each employer's actual requirements.

Make the portfolio demonstrate ability

Choose a few completed projects relevant to your target vacancies. Explain the problem, your solution, technology, setup, tests and limitations. A small application with a clear README and working demonstration is more useful than copied tutorial repositories without explanation.

In your CV, identify your own contribution, problems you fixed and how you checked the result. Practise explaining the code in English, including design choices and trade-offs. Remove credentials, personal information and previous employers' confidential code from public examples.

Search and prepare

Use careers pages of technology businesses and other organisations with software teams, Find a job ↗, university graduate channels where accessible, and specialist recruiters. Check opening dates: graduate and internship recruitment can begin well before the programme starts.

For an internship ↗, check student-status and graduation-date requirements. For an apprenticeship ↗, check eligibility and funding separately. Neither route is a universal workaround for right-to-work requirements.

Check conditions and learn from the process

For a technical assessment, ask about expected duration, permitted tools and assessment criteria. Do not present someone else's or generated work as your own: you will need to explain the important decisions. After a rejection, record a specific gap and address it in your next project.

The labels internship and work experience do not automatically remove minimum-wage rights: the intern employment-status rules ↗ apply. Before paying for a bootcamp, compare its curriculum, practical work, refund terms and the precise employment promise. Do not take on debt solely because of an unverified guarantee about your first IT salary.