Thanks again, and good luck in your own job search!

Re your job hunt, well you probably already know that things are tough out there. I was a former Sysadmin (Windows) and I spent 5 months out of work after losing my job just before Christmas. I’ve been working as a PC Engineer for one of my previous employers on a 3 month contract which finishes next week.

From what you’ve said it sounds like you have the right experience of Linux administration and coding that should get you an entry level position somewhere. I’ve found that employers are using this recession to downgrade salaries/contract rates and demand more for their money. CCNA might be useful if you expect to be working with a lot of Cisco kit, you could look at doing some self study and use RouterSim to get an idea of what the Cisco IOS is like and take it from there. There are some 5-6 day courses that can be quite intense and require a lot of pre-course preparation but like everything else they cost £££’s.

Anyway I wish you all the best in your career search.