Here, Jay Dare, a technical consultant at Cheltenham-based Infrastar, shares the story of his journey to his dream career.

My first insight to all things tech was given to me when I first moved from Jamaica over to England. The thing I remember was a feeling of awe. Tons of lights and screens everywhere. This was something I was not used to seeing. Even though I was young at the time, that moment has left a lasting impression on me and how my life has shaped out.

Since then, most of my interests have revolved around these top three things:

• Technology
• Sports
• Triple chocolate cookies

At 16, after taking my GCSEs, I decided to stay at sixth form and do A-Levels. I had enjoyed my time in school and felt like this was the best option for myself. Three months down the line, I had a change of heart. I felt as if my enjoyment of the subjects I had chosen had been diminishing since the first day of sixth form. For me, the workload outweighed my passion. I had lost all enjoyment of school, not even cookies could fix me.

After five months, I felt even worse about sixth form. I couldn't find the enthusiasm I once had, so instead of carrying on, I went and started searching for apprenticeships. I already knew I wanted to be in the tech industry, I had just envisioned it would be through the more traditional route. After doing a lot of research, I realised that an apprenticeship could be exactly what I need.

I managed to secure a job as an infrastructure technician for a company in Cheltenham. Working there helped me build an understanding of a working environment and confidence in my own knowledge. It opened my eyes to all the possible routes I could take in the technology industry. Dealing with the daily technical issues a medium sized company faced really forced me to grow into a better technician.

Unfortunately, things don't always work out the way you want them to. The company started to undergo business changes and I had to find a new apprenticeship. Despite being worried about finding another apprenticeship, I was also proud of how far my knowledge had come.

A month passed and managed to get a few offers for jobs, but the majority of them were not apprenticeships. I was really hoping to pick up where I had left off with my college work. Then I managed to get an interview with Infrastar.

I am grateful that luck has always been on my side and has allowed me to become a technical consultant with a fantastic networking and infrastructure company, where I'm surrounded by very talented colleagues and friends who help me to learn and grow every day.

To many others, my journey into cyber has only just started. But for me, I have been in cyber for the last 12 years. Cyber, to me, is a complete way of thinking, understanding and adapting. Without this mentality, life for me as a technical consultant would be very difficult, because I would lack the ability to take on any challenge without the fear of failure.

Sometimes, a problem can be fixed with something as simple as a restart, but in other situations it can require critical thinking, trial and error or the wisdom of others. This open mindset, passion and interest is what knits everyone in cyber together.

The tech industry works in a full mesh topology. Every area is linked to one another in some way. The current developments in the world have shown us this - Tesla has supplied hospitals with ventilators, Cisco has donated millions through its employee gifting scheme and Apple and Google teamed up to make a tracking app that everyone can use. These are just a few of the things that make the tech industry the best industry.