The pathway
How you actually get there, here
How you become one varies far more by country than what one does. This is the UK route. Most people take one of these ways in; the right one depends on where you're starting from.
- 1
Administrative Assistant / Office Support
1-2 yearsSkills to master
- Organisational skills, document management, basic communication, attention to detail, managing shared drives or internal portals.
You're ready to move on when
- You're the person who always organises the shared drive perfectly.
- You've taken initiative to improve how documents are filed.
- Colleagues often ask you where to find things because you're so good at it.
- 2
Library Assistant / Information Services
0-2 yearsSkills to master
- Cataloguing, classification, user support, information retrieval, understanding different types of information resources.
You're ready to move on when
- You've worked in a library or archive and enjoyed organising materials.
- You're good at helping people find specific books or resources.
- You understand the principles of classification and indexing.
- 3
Customer Support / Technical Support
1-3 yearsSkills to master
- Problem-solving, user empathy, clear communication, documenting solutions, identifying recurring issues.
You're ready to move on when
- You've spent time answering customer questions and know what information they need.
- You've contributed to or used internal knowledge bases to solve problems.
- You're good at explaining complex things in simple terms.