This story was originally published by Reasons to be Cheerful
9 min read
Bruce Devlin’s tech career is flourishing. He’s been promoted twice in the past four years, most recently to the role of senior quality engineer at 2i, a software testing company.
Devlin, 26, has even built his own system outage monitoring tool, and is developing his own video game. In recognition of his talent and passion, he was named a “rising star” at the 2026 ScotlandIS Digital Technology Awards.
“I often introduce myself as a big nerd. I’ve always been super into tweaking and tinkering with programming and computers. Since I was a kid, I loved all things to do with video games, movies and TV shows, and I just wanted to make my own games and technology,” says Devlin, who’s based in Glasgow, Scotland.
“I’ve now got a bunch of extracurricular projects that I essentially just reinvest all my salary back into, to make cool tech tools and video games.”
But for most of his life, Devlin didn’t have the means to do this. From the age of 10 to 21, Devlin was a carer for his single mother, who lived with borderline personality disorder. (“Carer” is the term used in the U.K.; “caregiver” is more common in the U.S.)
He was forced to grow up quickly, and had to take on the household shopping, cooking and cleaning, while also ensuring his mother attended medical appointments, took her medication, and paid their bills out of the disability benefits and carer’s allowance they received.
He still managed to attend school, but without the time to focus on studying, he barely scraped through high school — and going to college was out of the question. Even getting a part-time job felt out of reach.
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“It was a full-time job — you’re always there and available on call. I didn’t have much of a social life and I didn’t do much in terms of school. School was too much sometimes, and caring for my mom was the limit of my capabilities,” Devlin reflects.
“I came from a non-working family, so I didn’t have the greatest start. It was tough, looking back, but you do what you have to, you don’t know any different, I guess … that’s just how it was when I was growing up.”
“No house, no money, no prospects”
When his mother died in 2021, Devlin’s reaction was one of grief and devastation — alongside anxiety over the uncertainty of his future. He was close with his mother, and still holds her in high regard, noting that he started wearing his signature flat cap in her honor, to symbolize the person he believes she wanted him to become.
“My mom always told me that I’d do great things — that was the push I needed,” he says.
But Devlin’s financial situation was precarious. Their apartment would no longer be subsidized as social housing following his mom’s death, and he would no longer receive government carer payments.
He needed to support himself, but finding a job felt impossible, as he had no idea how to write a resume, let alone complete an application.
During an appointment at the Job Center — which people on unemployment benefits in the U.K. must attend to prove they are looking for work — his designated work coach suggested he apply for a tech “boot camp” with an organization called Generation.
Generation is a nonprofit that partners with companies to identify roles that they are struggling to fill, and develops specific training programs for them lasting several months — no degree required.
Devlin was accepted into the eight-week program the coach suggested, which led to him achieving a certification in computer and information sciences and support services. Two weeks later he interviewed with 2i, and got the job.
“I had no house, no money, no prospects and no support, and now I have all of that. But I don’t care much for having a big house and lots of money — just being a contributing member of society is an amazing achievement,” says Devlin.
Generation put 800 people in the U.K. through its training programs last year, and helped land jobs for 556 of them, according to its annual report. Since it launched in the U.K. in 2019, 4,000 people have completed its programs, which include certifications in IT and data analysis, “green” jobs like solar panel and heat pump installers, as well as for skilled trades, health care, and customer service and sales.
Over 2,300 job placements have been made since Generation’s launch, with over 1,000 U.K. businesses recruiting its “graduates” into roles they struggled to fill through the usual recruitment methods. The difference, says CEO Michael Houlihan, is that the programs are designed based on jobs that employers actually need to fill — fast.
“Our model is to look at where there are jobs and what it takes to be successful in those jobs, not just to land the interview, but then to subsequently succeed. So we spend a lot of time thinking about the employment market and speaking to employers to identify specific jobs where there’s a genuine and significant employer need, and building pathways into those jobs,” says London-based Houlihan.
“A big part of our conversation with them is to understand what they’re looking for. There’s a strong consensus that skills-based hiring can give much better results, but it does require the employer to take some steps to develop a framework around that, rather than just always defaulting to requiring a degree.”
Are degrees still necessary?
The value of a college degree is increasingly being questioned as more people find themselves either out of work or unable to enter the job market in the first place. Unemployment among college graduates in the U.K. rose to six percent last year and 700,000 jobless graduates were found to be claiming benefits.
New research from think tank Policy Exchange also revealed that one in 10 graduates is earning less than the U.K. National Living Wage (£12.71 per hour or around $17) after five years.
Generation data shows that its tech program graduates earn an average of £40,000 (around $53,000) five years after graduating, and that they tend to see an average yearly salary increase of 17 percent.
According to research from Totaljobs, 32 percent of U.K. employers say their biggest hiring challenge is finding candidates with the right skills, which suggests that skills-based hiring — and specialist training to support that — is going to become further in demand.
“There are some fantastic organizations who have really adopted the mindset that a degree is a weak signal for someone’s ability to do a job. And they are now going to test and interview based on someone’s suitability and intrinsic skills and motivation for this role, and going to hire based on that,” says Houlihan.
“Those organizations, I think, are massively benefiting from that approach. They are the exception rather than the norm.”
Social mobility is clearly a factor, too, with 42 percent of Generation’s learners coming from deprived backgrounds. Just 32 percent of 25 to 29 year olds from lower working-class backgrounds tend to have college degrees, compared with 70 percent of those with higher socioeconomic backgrounds, according to U.K. government data.
Removing the requirement for a degree naturally then allows for more people from different backgrounds to succeed.
“It’s a huge and very fast cut through on social mobility,” Houlihan confirms.
“There have been some fantastic efforts to change the socioeconomic profile of people with degrees, but it’s still moving very slowly, and it’s quite entrenched, so it’s going to take a long time for the people coming out of university to be a better representation of society.”
Good news for graduates
Employers are also becoming more open to new ways of upskilling the people they want to hire, as seen by the growing number of apprenticeship programs on offer throughout the corporate space, which provide an educational curriculum alongside day-to-day work. The number of people starting apprenticeships across the U.K. is up 12 percent from the previous academic year.
It’s good news for graduates looking for work, coupled with the fact that the decline in hiring may be reversed soon. Forty-seven percent of U.K. employers say they will be offering entry-level positions from July, according to ManpowerGroup’s Employment Outlook Survey. Yet not all are convinced that the requirement for a university degree will be completely scrapped.
“Graduate employers are after the fact that the people have gone and experienced life in a different environment, probably had to live on their own and fend for themselves to an extent. They have actually put themselves through the university workload, and managed themselves and their time,” says Lee Chant, commercial staffing managing director at Manpower.
Generation’s Houlihan, however, remains firm that a university degree should no longer be viewed as “the golden ticket to social mobility.”
“We see that the employment outcomes from degrees are often not great, and, combined with the rising cost of going to university, now makes a poor business case for getting a degree,” he says.
Back in Glasgow, Devlin is grateful to finally have the tech career he always wanted.
“Without this, I don’t think I’d be in a good place. I’d just be on benefits, wasting away any potential that I would have ever had,” he says.
The post How People Without Degrees Are Snagging Corporate Jobs in the U.K. appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
