IT staff sign up for Linux summer camp

An increasing number of IT professionals are giving up sun, sea and sand to attend intensive summer-camp training courses in technical skills, especially Linux.

Accelerated learning specialist The Training Camp said that it has seen demand for its residential IT courses double this summer compared to last year.

The company runs fast-track courses throughout the year, many of which are paid-for by attendees' employers.

Training Camp co-founder Robert Chapman had noticed a marked increase in the number of people taking courses privately during their annual summer leave.

"Across the year, about 70 per cent of students are paid for by their companies, but over the summer months there's a sharp swing towards employees paying privately," he said.

The most in-demand courses are currently for Linux certification.

Chapman believes this is because forward-thinking professionals see the open source operating system as a big growth area and are determined to arm themselves with the skills they need to advance their careers.

"Typically, people want to invest in themselves because they're trying to get a new job, a promotion or a pay rise. And now is a good time for them to be doing that as the IT market seems to be picking up," he said.

"More companies are using Linux for mission-critical applications such as large trading systems. They are no longer just experiments.

"There was a time when organisations would take anyone who had any kind of Linux experience, but as the market matures they are looking for professionals with certification."

Other popular courses include developer modules, Cisco CCNP, Microsoft MCAD, VB.Net and C#.

However, IT professionals hoping to rekindle their raucous student days may be in for a short, sharp shock. Chapman warned that the camp's intensive regime leaves little time for relaxation.

"Two weeks with us is the equivalent of about six weeks of normal training," he explained.

"Inevitably there's a great deal of humour and camaraderie among students because they're in such an intense environment, but we'd never encourage our students to get drunk because it would tend to have an impact on the following day's tuition."