I didn't have a degree when I started myself. It depended on the job you were applying for.

I suppose there used to be a more rigid hierarchy of roles.

Entry level "programmer" positions requested a degree but "comparable experience in the field" (a pretty loose description) was generally enough to qualify you for things like Civil Service written tests. If you passed, at least your resume got put in the pool. A high enough score and you might well be considered before low-scoring degreed applicants.

The no-hands-on "analyst" positions on the other hand pretty much required a degree even to be allowed to test.

Operations jobs (operating a computer, which mostly meant a lot of mounting tapes and tearing paper off printers along with keeping program runs on schedule) and technician jobs (fetching and carrying terminals and wiring them into the network - there were no PCs) only required a high school diploma, with preference given for some technical school training.

There were no phony-baloney "project manager" positions back then (remember, this was a long time ago). Management was handled by supervisors and managers and obviously your odds of getting such a role without prior paid work experience were unlikely (and probably still are unless you are the boss' nephew).


And of course there are those organizations a little leery of anything outside their core expertise. A septic tank service might well decide to make a good tanker who plinks at home on his PC a paid programmer.

Few organizations have any use for staff who maintain, let alone write, compilers and operating systems anymore. Software is a lot more commoditized now. Can you imagine submitting actual code patches to Microsoft for a Windows fix? Hah! Who even gets the source code? Yet in the old mainframe/mini days this wasn't rare at all.