Get the low-down on different careers in creative and digital media: video editor, IT technician, web programmer, graphic designer and marketing manager.

My name is Helen Pickles and I'm a video-tape editor in a post-production house. My job entails taking the rushes, the actual raw tapes from the cameramen, and capturing them into the editing system, and then editing them on the computer. We edit everything from documentaries to entertainment pieces to music videos for both broadcast and to go out on DVD. My educational background is very traditional. I did GCSEs, A levels and then a degree at university. My first job was in a local television news company, and that's where I learned to edit news pieces. With those skills I then went and got a job at CNN in London. I'm now working in a post-production house, but the skills that I've acquired throughout my career are still very relevant to me today. To do my job as a video tape editor there are quite a few skills that I do need: one being IT skills - obviously both an understanding of the software that I'm working on, and a general understanding of how computers work. I need to have quite a creative flare so that I can produce something a bit different and a bit interesting visually. I also need to communicate well with people. I need to make sure that I'm delivering what the client has asked for.

My name is Gershon Nubour. After my O levels I did Scottish Highers, then came down to Sheffield to do a degree there, and ended up working for BT in Sheffield. I got my training there - basically learning about computing and networking - and now I work for the Music Factory. Day-to-day I do all sorts of different things, whether it's looking after the email server, checking that someone can actually get on remotely and log in by the internet, or fixing pieces of kit like this, which are often quite temperamental. It's really quite challenging but it's good fun with all the people here and they're all really friendly. In the music industry, and in multimedia as a whole, you can't get away from IT. Everything else rests on it, whether it's the graphic designers using their Macs to create images for a new launch for a new product, or whether it's just the actual recording studios and they're sequencing tracks, and they're using PCs to do that. Everything, at the end of the day, revolves around IT.

I'm Angie Mozart and I work for an independent record label as a web programmer. Initially, my job was to program and develop the website for Tidy Tracks and now we get 10 million hits per month, and my job mainly now is to maintain and develop on a daily basis. I left school with a couple of O levels, a handful of CSEs, RSA in typing, and as I didn't go on to further education I've had to learn more skills as I've gone along.

I like the fact that I can work from home and this allows me to be creative in my own environment. I love the fact that all my work is on the World Wide Web for the rest of the world to see. It took me 10 years to progress to this level, and if I was to do it again I would definitely go to college, learn as many computer skills as I could, because that's the fast track to where I am now.

My name is Ian Tatham; I am the owner of 12:10 Graphic Design. After the sixth form I went on to do an art foundation course for a year which led me on to do a fashion degree. After that I started up my own company from home, working by myself on a computer, doing tee shirt ranges and flyers and posters for friends. Seven years later, there are 15 of us working here, producing work for people like Paul Smith. The thing that I love about this job is that I love design and I love seeing the results of what I've done. Walking into a record shop, seeing your record sleeve on the shelf, walking into a clothes shop, seeing a tee shirt you've designed. It's a great feeling. To get into this industry you can't just leave school and walk straight into this level of job. You need to hone your skills. You need to develop what you're good at, and the best place to do that is college.

I'm Jimmy Endicott and I'm the marketing manager at Galaxy 105, the radio station. One of the things that I've noticed these days in the job that I do is a lot of the stuff we used to do which was creative, like drawing, coming up with ideas, thinking of great ways to promote things - it's all moving to computers now. And I now do a lot of my creative work on the computer. Any opportunity you get to teach yourself, whether that's at school or college where they've got those facilities available to you, just take advantage of it whilst ever you can.