In this guest blog Sharon Wilks, Account Manager at RKWO, shares her insights and tips for developing a career in web design.   

COVID-19 has led the world into a massive transformation towards the digital world.

With storefronts not being able to operate due to government safety restrictions, everyday brick and mortar businesses that rely on sales from passing customers have fallen dramatically.

At the start of the UK’s very first national lockdown, our web design company hit an all-time high. With companies scrambling to get online last minute in March 2020, we had a backlog of work up until November 2020.

The big internal question we have is, can we maintain this level of sales, post-pandemic? The simple answer is yes, and here’s why.

We expect to see a lot more companies transform from a physical location into a virtual one (i.e. a website), due to others having done this successfully already — cutting massive amounts of overheads at the same time.

With more and more websites coming online, the online competition is going to get tougher as well. Meaning, more companies are going to invest in updating their sites more regularly, as well as investing in search engine optimisation.

So what does this mean for students who are looking to prepare for the web design industry?

A key factor that makes them great candidates for a role within the web design industry is knowing how to code practically.

When graduates apply, we usually ask them to code a website based on a design we supply. Therefore, having the knowledge to know which languages you need to use, how to structure your code, and understanding general best practices is crucial for securing the job.

If you’re a student or recent graduate who is looking to get into this now more than ever busy digital industry, we’ve compiled a list of topics you should consider learning about:

• Learn how to use HTML and CSS.
• Learn how to code responsive websites using CSS.
• Learn PHP and JavaScript (including Vanilla JavaScript, jQuery and ReactJS).
• Learn how to build using WordPress and/or Laravel as a base.
• Bonus: learn how to implement best SEO practices within a website.

If you can comfortably achieve a good chunk of the above list, you’ll likely pick up the rest whilst working on the job.