From my experience
Getting the job wasn’t the same as knowing the job
My first support role taught me the script. The next one showed me the judgement, communication and uncertainty that the script had hidden.
Perspectives
A little perspective.
Careers, qualifications and the things you learn along the way.
Honest thoughts from a life in technology.
Hi, I’m James.
These are the lessons, mistakes and questions I keep coming back to.
A bit about meThe latest from me
New thoughts, practical lessons and a few difficult questions.
- Certifications
Is CEH worth it? Only when the job spec has already answered yes
CEH is a relatively basic knowledge credential, not proof that you can run an ethical-hacking engagement. Its strongest use is clearing a filter that a real role has already named.
Read the story - Roles
How to become a Security Architect in the UK: the realistic path
Security Architect isn't a starting point. The six technical routes that actually lead there, what changes when you arrive, and why you don't need a degree to get there.
Read the story - Certifications
SC-500 after AZ-500: is it worth it for your career?
AZ-500 retired in August 2026 and SC-500 is what replaced it. Who the new exam is actually for, and the three places it breaks.
Read the story
Find something for your situation
A few suggested reads, based on what’s on your mind.
Career Perspectives
For people building careers.
Certifications, roles, career change, and where the industry is heading. Written for the person trying to make the next move without burning eighteen months on the wrong one.
Certifications
Certifications can set direction, structure your learning and sometimes get you past a hiring filter. They're far less useful when they become a substitute for deciding what job you're actually trying to do.
Certifications don't prove competence. They prove direction
27 May 20266 min readWhy Security+ is simultaneously overrated and useful
24 May 20267 min readIs CISSP actually worth it in 2026?
24 May 20266 min readI passed CISSP and nothing happened, and that's fine
30 May 20265 min read
Roles
Understand the work, expectations and trade-offs behind a title before choosing your next move. Most bad moves come from picking the title and discovering the job later.
Why most people fail trying to leave helpdesk
23 May 20266 min readThe realistic SOC analyst path
24 May 20266 min readWhy security architects are always the bad guys
28 May 20265 min readAI and the first IT job
19 Sept 20266 min read
Career change
Weigh the route, time and evidence involved in changing careers, including when a move is the wrong call. Starting again costs more than the course fee.
The second beginner problem
30 May 20267 min readThe problem isn't age. It's expectation compression
30 May 20266 min readWhy most career-change advice breaks at the first interview
30 May 20267 min readIs a computer science degree worth it in the UK?
18 Jul 20267 min read
Industry
Technology and specialisation keep changing the work and the routes into it. Read the market as it is, not as the course adverts describe it.
AI will not delete IT, but it will shrink one kind of IT role
24 May 20266 min readWhat AI actually does to pentesting
29 May 20267 min readThe real bottleneck in cybersecurity careers
15 Jun 20266 min readWhy networking is still underrated
15 Jun 20265 min read
Hiring Perspectives
For recruiters, hiring managers and talent teams.
Why technical roles stay open, and what the market actually does behind the polite language of job specs. Same publication, same voice, different audience.
Hiring
Technical roles usually stay open because of the brief, not the market. Examine the assumptions in the spec before widening the search.
Wrong Pool. Why Cloud Security roles stay open despite strong candidate supply
3 Jun 20266 min readDouble Dipping. The uncomfortable economics behind contractor-to-permanent hiring
3 Jun 20266 min readThe UK cybersecurity job market in 2026: more jobs, but getting in is still hard
30 Sept 20266 min readThe AI hiring filter is mostly noise
19 Sept 20265 min read
A conversation worth having
Good questions make better Perspectives.
The decisions, doubts and difficult bits of a technology career are worth talking about.
What would you like me to tackle?
Send a career question for a future Perspective.
Send a question
In the notebook 11 essays in progress
These essays are being written and are not available to read yet.
Cloud engineering isn't entry-level anymore
In progressThe market that hired junior cloud engineers in 2019 doesn't exist. What replaced it, and the realistic path in.
The hidden downside of a GRC career
In progressGRC is one of the calmest, best-paid entries into security. It also quietly closes doors you may not realise you wanted open.
DevOps vs platform engineering. What actually changed
In progressIt isn't a rename. The hiring bar, day-to-day, and career ceiling are all different. Most candidates pick the wrong one.
Bootcamp vs self-taught. The question is wrong
In progressNeither route is the actual differentiator. What matters is the thing both routes leave out.
How people actually get their first job in cyber
In progressNot via the cert stack the influencers sell. Five real patterns, ranked by how often they work.
Invisible Feeders. Why the best IAM candidates rarely have IAM in their job title
In progressPart 2 of seven. The strongest IAM hires are sitting in platform, infra and identity-adjacent roles whose titles don't contain the word identity. Search by title and you miss them by design.
Tool Fetishism. When platform hiring mistakes tooling familiarity for engineering capability
In progressPart 3 of seven. Filtering for Terraform plus Argo plus Backstage plus a specific service mesh stops being a skills filter and becomes a brand filter. The candidates who pass the brand filter aren't always the ones who can build the platform.
Architecture Inflation. How Security Architect roles quietly become leadership positions
In progressPart 4 of seven. The title says architect. The responsibilities describe a head of function. Senior candidates read the gap from the JD and withdraw by round two, and the brief blames the market.
SIEM Badge Syndrome. Why Detection Engineer searches collapse when platforms become proxies for skill
In progressPart 5 of seven. Asking for three named SIEMs feels like a capability filter. It's actually a platform-tenure filter, and the engineers who think like detectors have gone deep on one platform, not wide across three.
Responsibility Dumping. When DevSecOps becomes a workaround for organisational ownership problems
In progressPart 6 of seven. Some DevSecOps roles exist because no one will own the security debt. The hire is being asked to paper over an org-chart problem, and the strongest candidates can smell it in round one.
Leadership Paradox. Why Security Manager briefs often exclude both managers and engineers
In progressPart 7 of seven. The JD asks for a manager who's still hands-on at IC depth. Each half of the pool reads itself out, and the search ends up filtering for the candidate who's least sure which job they're doing.