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    Data Sources & Methodology

    This site uses real, third-party UK data to power tools like the ROI Calculator and 90-Day Career Plan — never invented figures. Here's exactly what we use, how current it is, and how we calculate what you see.

    Real data, always cited

    Every figure on this site traces back to a named, real source — a government dataset, a published UK salary index, or a provider's own published pricing. We never invent a number to fill a gap.

    Estimates, not guarantees

    Costs and salary figures are illustrative UK-wide typical figures, not a quote for a specific programme or a promise of what you'll earn. Every tool lets you enter your own real figure instead.

    Reviewed and dated

    Each data set below carries a last-verified date and a confidence level. Where the evidence is thin, we say so — and show you the closest real data rather than a smoothed-over average.

    Salary & labour market data

    Used in the ROI Calculator and the 90-Day Career Plan's real job market snapshot. We combine ONS ASHE Table 14, 2024 (revised) — the UK government's official annual earnings survey, for a stable baseline — with IT Jobs Watch's rolling job-ad-derived salary bands for a more current, market-facing figure, cross-referenced with named sector hiring reports rather than presented as a single definitive number. Where a career family only has partial real evidence (for example, no reliable junior-level sample), we label it draft and say so directly in the tool, rather than smoothing over the gap.

    Career familyConfidenceLast verifiedSources
    Software & Developmentreviewed2026-07-11ONS ASHE Table 14, 2024 (revised) · IT Jobs Watch: Software Developer / Junior Software Developer / Senior Software Developer (UK) · Harvey Nash: Software 2026 UK Hiring Outlook · Coding and Software Development Job Market Report (UK), Learning People / Adzuna, Jun 2026 · Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025 (Technology)
    Data & AIreviewed2026-07-11ONS ASHE Table 14, 2024 (revised) · IT Jobs Watch: Data Analyst / Junior Data Analyst / Senior Data Analyst (UK) · Data Job Market Report (UK), Learning People / Adzuna, Jun 2026
    Cyber Securityreviewed2026-07-11IT Jobs Watch: Cyber Security / Security Analyst / Junior Security Analyst (UK) · Robert Walters: Cybersecurity Trends Shaping Hiring in 2026 (UK Market Update) · GDPR Course: Cyber Security Skills Gap Statistics UK · IT & Cyber Security Job Market Report (UK), Learning People, Jan 2026
    Cloud & Infrastructurereviewed2026-07-11ONS ASHE Table 14, 2024 (revised) · IT Jobs Watch: Cloud Engineer / Junior Cloud Engineer / Senior Cloud Engineer (UK) · Cloud Computing Jobs UK: Cloud Computing Hiring Trends 2026
    Networks & Connectivityreviewed2026-07-11ONS ASHE Table 14, 2024 (revised) · IT Jobs Watch: Network Engineer / Junior Network Engineer / Senior Network Engineer (UK) · IT Computer Networking Job Market Report (UK), Learning People, Jun 2026 · TechTarget: Advanced skills drive networking job market in 2026
    Product & Designreviewed2026-07-11ONS ASHE Table 14, 2024 (revised) · IT Jobs Watch: UX Designer / Junior UX Designer / Senior UX Designer (UK) · UX Design Institute: The UX Job Market in 2026
    Strategy & Transformationreviewed2026-07-11ONS ASHE Table 14, 2024 (revised) · IT Jobs Watch: Business Analyst / Junior Business Analyst / Senior Business Analyst (UK) · Business Analytics Job Market Report (UK), Learning People / Adzuna, Jun 2026
    Emerging Technologiesdraft2026-07-11IT Jobs Watch: Machine Learning Engineer (UK) · Acceler8 Talent: AI & Machine Learning Hiring Trends Q1 2026 (UK vs US) · VIQU IT: AI Engineer Salaries & Hiring Trends in the UK

    Tuition & programme costs

    Used in the ROI Calculator. No single programme's actual fee is stored on this site — these are UK-wide typical figures by qualification type, sourced from government fee regulations, published funding rules and providers' own advertised pricing. The calculator always lets you type in the real figure quoted to you, rather than relying on our estimate.

    Qualification typeSourceLast verified
    Degree Apprenticeshipgov.uk: Apprenticeship funding rules, August 2025 to July 2026; gov.uk: Apprenticeship unit funding rules 2026 to 20272026-07-12
    Apprenticeshipgov.uk: Apprenticeship funding rules, August 2025 to July 2026; Education Hub (gov.uk blog): How are apprenticeships funded and what is the apprenticeship levy?2026-07-12
    Degreegov.uk: Changes to tuition fees, 2026 to 2027 academic year2026-07-12
    Training ProgrammeProvider-published pricing (makers.tech, lewagon.com, codeinstitute.net, hyperiondev.com), verified Jul 20262026-07-12
    ProfessionalProvider-published pricing (makers.tech, lewagon.com, codeinstitute.net, hyperiondev.com), verified Jul 20262026-07-12
    Work-ReadyNo reliable UK-wide typical figure found during research2026-07-12

    Student finance & apprenticeship funding

    Used in the ROI Calculator's funding explainer. Undergraduate Tuition Fee Loan, Maintenance Loan and Plan 5 repayment terms, the Master's Loan, and apprenticeship levy/wage rules are all taken directly from gov.uk's official student finance and apprenticeship funding guidance for the 2026/27 year — figures verified 20 July 2026, and re-checked whenever the academic year rolls over since thresholds, interest rates and wage rates change annually.

    Programme & provider information

    Used in the Programme Directory, Comparison Tool, and individual programme pages. Levels, qualification types, skills developed, career outcomes and provider details all come from the Tech Industry Gold accreditation register — reviewed as part of each provider's accreditation, not scraped or estimated.

    Career matrix, skills & occupations

    Used on the 8 Career Family pages (Career Matrix and Skills Lab). Each domain card is generated by merging live skill and occupation data from the UK Standard Skills Classification (SSC Explorer) API, published by Skills England under the Open Government Licence v3.0, with our own hand-written salary-band and narrative copy layered on top — the SSC has no equivalent for those. Not every domain has a confident live match yet: where the SSC taxonomy has no distinct, non-generic skill group or occupation title for a domain, we leave it on our own editorial content rather than force a weak fit, and never mark it as SSC-sourced until it's genuinely verified against a live, non-zero API response.

    Career familyLive SSC-mapped domainsLast verified
    Software & Development8 / 82026-07-06
    Data & AI5 / 92026-07-06
    Cyber Security6 / 82026-07-06
    Cloud & Infrastructure5 / 82026-07-06
    Networks & Connectivity4 / 82026-07-06
    Product & Design5 / 82026-07-06
    Strategy & Transformation6 / 92026-07-06
    Emerging Technologies1 / 92026-07-06

    Apprenticeship route: standards & regional demand

    Used on the Career Matrix's Apprenticeship Route toggle, covering both the hands-on Hard Hat trades (fibre, data centres, industrial automation, construction and geospatial survey) and desk-based apprenticeships (Software Developer, Cyber Security Technician and others). Apprenticeship standards are matched directly to the Apprenticeship standards register, run by Skills England (successor to the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education, IfATE, which closed June 2025 and transferred its statutory functions there), under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Where a target role has no distinct standard (only an adjacent or retired one), we say so directly rather than presenting a weak match as current. Regional demand figures, where shown, come from the Annual Population Survey (regional, by SOC2020 occupation), published by Office for National Statistics, via the NOMIS API. This dataset only publishes a genuine regional breakdown at UK-nation level (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) for most occupations, not by English region, so that is what's shown; where no reliable regional split exists at all for an occupation, the regional demand panel is left out rather than filled with a national figure relabelled as regional. Salary figures for vocational occupations use the same ONS ASHE Table 14, 2024 (revised) standard as the rest of the site, only shown where an occupation title resolves to exactly one unambiguous SOC 2020 code.

    Career familyVocational domainApprenticeship standards citedRegional demand dataLast verified
    Software & DevelopmentSoftware Developer, Apprenticeship Route2Not available2026-07-30
    Data & AIConstruction Technology & Geospatial Surveying3Available2026-07-29
    Data & AIData Analyst, Apprenticeship Route2Not available2026-08-10
    Data & AIMachine Learning Engineer, Apprenticeship Route1Not available2026-08-10
    Data & AINon-Destructive Testing (NDT)3Not available2026-07-31
    Cyber SecurityCyber Security Technician, Apprenticeship Route3Not available2026-07-29
    Cyber SecurityOperational Technology (OT) Security2Not available2026-07-30
    Cloud & InfrastructureDevOps Engineer, Apprenticeship Route1Not available2026-08-10
    Cloud & InfrastructureIT Solutions Technician, Apprenticeship Route1Not available2026-08-10
    Cloud & InfrastructureData Centre Operations2Not available2026-07-30
    Networks & ConnectivityNetwork Engineer, Apprenticeship Route1Not available2026-08-10
    Networks & ConnectivityTelecoms & Fibre Field Engineering5Available2026-07-30
    Networks & ConnectivitySmart Buildings3Available2026-07-30
    Product & DesignDigital UX Professional, Apprenticeship Route2Not available2026-07-29
    Strategy & TransformationBusiness Analyst, Apprenticeship Route2Not available2026-07-29
    Strategy & TransformationSustainability Business Specialist, Apprenticeship Route1Not available2026-08-25
    Emerging TechnologiesIndustrial Automation5Not available2026-07-30
    Emerging TechnologiesUtilities Technology6Not available2026-07-30
    Emerging TechnologiesManufacturing & Production Engineering4Not available2026-07-31

    Skills Lab

    Used on every career family page's Skills Lab. Rather than a single blanket citation, each zone names the specific real standard it draws on, and a small set of flagship items go further with a full sourced breakdown (why it matters, how to develop and demonstrate it, what evidence to show). The rest of the lab's content stays hand-written and is labelled honestly as editorial rather than implying a sourcing it doesn't have. Coverage genuinely varies by family — Emerging Tech has only one real standard behind one item, because no coherent standard exists for that family as a whole, and we'd rather say that plainly than force a weak fit.

    Career familySourceCategoryPublisherLast verified
    Cyber SecurityCyber Security Technician occupational standard (OCC0865)v1.0Government GuidanceSkills England2026-08-24
    Cyber SecurityCyber Security Body of Knowledge (CyBOK)v1.1Industry FrameworkCyBOK / National Cyber Security Centre2026-08-24
    Cyber SecurityStandard for Professional Competence and Commitment (SPCC)v4.2, October 2024Professional StandardUK Cyber Security Council2026-08-24
    Cyber SecuritySFIA — Information security (SCTY) skillSFIA 8Industry FrameworkThe SFIA Foundation2026-08-24
    Cyber Security10 Steps to Cyber SecurityGovernment GuidanceNational Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)2026-08-24
    Software DevelopmentSoftware Developer occupational standard (OCC0116)v1.1 (ST0116 v1.2)Government GuidanceSkills England2026-08-25
    Software DevelopmentSFIA view: Software EngineeringSFIA 9Industry FrameworkThe SFIA Foundation2026-08-25
    Cloud & InfrastructureInformation Communications Technician apprenticeship standard (ST0973)v1.2Government GuidanceSkills England2026-08-25
    Cloud & InfrastructureCompTIA Network+ / infrastructure certificationsIndustry FrameworkCompTIA2026-08-25
    Networks & ConnectivityNetwork Engineer occupational standard (OCC0127)ST0127 v1.4Government GuidanceSkills England2026-08-25
    Networks & ConnectivityCompTIA Network+ / infrastructure certificationsIndustry FrameworkCompTIA2026-08-25
    Data, AI & Intelligent SystemsData Technician → Data Scientist / AI Data Specialist apprenticeship ladder (ST0795, ST0118, ST1386, ST0585, ST0763)Government GuidanceSkills England2026-08-25
    Data, AI & Intelligent SystemsChartered Statistician (CStat)Professional StandardRoyal Statistical Society2026-08-25
    Data, AI & Intelligent SystemsSFIA view: AI and dataSFIA 9Industry FrameworkThe SFIA Foundation2026-08-25
    Strategy & TransformationBusiness Analyst occupational standard (OCC0117)v1.1 (ST0117 v1.2)Government GuidanceSkills England2026-08-25
    Strategy & TransformationChartered Manager (CMgr) standardProfessional StandardChartered Management Institute2026-08-25
    Strategy & TransformationSFIA view: Business analysis and process improvementSFIA 9Industry FrameworkThe SFIA Foundation2026-08-25
    Product & DesignDigital User Experience Professional apprenticeship standard (ST0470)v1.0Government GuidanceSkills England2026-08-25
    Product & DesignChartered Designer status (CPSK framework)Professional StandardChartered Society of Designers2026-08-25
    Emerging & Future TechAutomation and Controls Engineering Technician apprenticeship standard (ST0662)Government GuidanceSkills England2026-08-25

    How the ROI Calculator works

    1. Cost. We prefill a typical UK-wide figure for the qualification type you pick (see the table above), which you can always overwrite with your own real number.

    2. Salary trajectory. Years 1–2 use the "junior" band, years 3–5 use "mid", and year 6 onward uses "senior" — real published bands for the career family you choose, not a smoothed growth curve.

    3. Net position. We track cumulative earnings minus the cost you entered, compared against your current salary as a flat baseline — the year this turns positive is the "payback point".

    4. Data gaps. If a band has no real data for a family (e.g. Emerging Technologies has no junior-level sample yet), we use the closest real band available and say so — we never fabricate a missing figure.

    Spotted something that looks off?

    If a figure looks out of date or wrong, tell us — we review and correct this data regularly and would rather fix it than leave it standing.

    Report a data issue