How to Get a Tech Job Without a College Degree: What Works

You can get a tech job without a college degree, but the route is narrower than the headlines suggest. The people who make it tend to aim at roles that hire on proof (IT support, security, web development, sales, startup operations, some AI work), stack a credential or apprenticeship that employers recognize, and use referrals to get past degree filters that still exist.

Definition: Skills-based hiring means screening candidates on demonstrated skills (work samples, assessments, certifications, past results) rather than on a degree. Removing a degree line from a posting is the first step, not the whole thing.

What skills-based hiring changed, and what it didn't

The announcements were real. The follow-through was patchy. Per a February 2024 Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Business School study of 11,300 roles at large firms from 2014 to 2023, the annual number of roles that dropped a degree requirement nearly quadrupled. But in roles where the requirement came off, hiring of people without degrees rose by just 3.5 percentage points on average. The authors estimate that added about 97,000 non-degree hires a year, which they describe as fewer than 1 in 700 hires in 2023.

The firms split three ways. About 37 percent were leaders, raising non-degree hiring by about 18 percent on average. About 45 percent changed in name only: the posting moved, the hiring did not. The remaining 18 percent backslid as early gains faded.

Here's the part that matters for you. Where non-degree workers were hired, the study found they stayed longer: two-year retention of 58 percent versus 48 percent for degree holders. That is your pitch. You are not a compromise hire. You are a retention bet.

A myth worth checking. You will see lists claiming big tech companies no longer require degrees. Some did drop the line from postings. The Burning Glass data suggests that for nearly half of the firms that dropped the requirement, the change alone did not shift who got hired. We'd read a missing requirement as permission to apply, not a promise of a fair read.

Postings moved further for some roles. CompTIA's analysis of June 2025 tech job postings found nearly half did not specify a four-year degree, and it listed network support, tech support, database administration, network and systems administration and web development among the disciplines where those postings sat. Software engineering is a different story, which is why the role you pick matters.

Best tech jobs without a degree

Our picks favor roles where skill is easy to show and the Bureau of Labor Statistics describes a non-degree route. Pay and outlook figures are BLS medians for May 2025 and projections for 2025 to 2035.

Role	What the BLS says about entry	Median pay	Outlook
Computer support specialist	High school diploma plus IT certifications can qualify	$62,890	Declining 3 percent
Information security analyst	Some enter with a diploma, training and certifications	$129,180	Growing 21 percent
Web developer	Ranges from high school diploma to bachelor's; portfolios count	$92,650	Growing 5 percent (with designers)
Sales development and customer success	Not a BLS tech category; startups hire on results	Varies	Varies by company

A few honest notes:

IT support is the classic front door, and it is shrinking. The BLS projects a small decline in computer support jobs over the next decade. It is still a common first rung toward networking, systems and security work.
Security pays well, but the no-degree path is usually indirect. The BLS notes many employers prefer candidates with a security certification and that analysts may need work experience in a related occupation. In our view, the usual route runs through help desk or network roles plus a certification or two.
Web development rewards a portfolio. It is one of the few engineering-flavored roles where the BLS explicitly mentions employers accepting demonstrated work in place of a degree.
Software engineering at large companies is the hardest version. The BLS says software developers typically hold a bachelor's in a computing or related field. It is possible without one, usually with a long public track record.

Our guide to the best entry-level tech jobs compares more options. If your worry is the major rather than the diploma, see getting into tech without a CS degree.

How to get into the tech industry without a degree: apprenticeships

An apprenticeship is the closest thing tech has to a paid substitute for college: you are hired, paid, trained and mentored at once, and you finish with a credential and a job history.

Per the Department of Labor's Apprenticeship.gov, registered apprentices who complete their programs see a 93 percent employment retention rate and an average starting salary of $86,000 after completion. Those figures cover all industries, most of them traditional trades, so read them as a system-wide average rather than a tech forecast.

Tech-specific intermediaries exist too. Apprenti describes itself as running registered apprenticeships in tech, life sciences and advanced manufacturing, says no prior experience is required for most of them, and pays apprentices while they train. Its site describes an assessment step and paid, on-the-job training with an employer.

Two checks before you commit:

Is it registered? Registered programs follow Department of Labor standards; some so-called apprenticeships are unpaid courses.
Who is the employer? The value is the job at the end. Ask which companies hired the last cohort and in what roles.

Our guide on how to get experience when every job requires it covers apprenticeships alongside other ways to build a track record.

Certificates: which ones carry weight

Certificates work best where postings name them. In IT support, networking and security, hiring managers often use a recognized certification as a stand-in for a degree at the resume screen.

Elsewhere, treat them as structure for learning, not the proof itself. Google says its Career Certificates in fields like IT support, data analytics, cybersecurity and UX design require no prior experience and take three to six months at under 10 hours a week. It reports that more than 70 percent of graduates saw a positive career outcome (a new job, promotion or raise) within six months, per its own 2025 US graduate survey. That is vendor-reported and counts raises, so it is not a placement rate.

A quick test before you pay for any certificate: pull 30 recent postings for your target role and count how many mention it by name. Ten or more is a strong signal. Two is a hobby.

How to get a startup job without a college degree

Startups are, in our view, among the most degree-blind employers in tech. Many have no HR screen, and the person reading your application may be the founder. Paul Graham made the case back in 2008, in his essay "After Credentials": small companies live or die on results, so the people hiring for them tend to care what you can do, not whether you finished college.

What tends to work:

Lead with a work sample. A founder hiring for customer success will likely read your two-page churn plan before your education line.
Target seed to Series A companies. Smaller teams hire generalists and have fewer formal filters.
Go direct. A short note to the founder or the hiring manager often gets read where an application form does not.
Check the company before you join. A startup that fails in a year costs you more without a degree to fall back on; our guide on how to get a job at a startup covers runway and equity.

On the 1752vc careers board, the startup track filtered by Entry level and Past 7 days is one quick way to find fresh roles at venture-backed companies, since each listing shows the employer's own posting date.

How to get an AI job without a college degree

AI is more open to non-graduates than its reputation suggests, at least outside research. Anthropic's careers page, for instance, says about half its technical staff have PhDs, and also that "plenty of brilliant colleagues never went to college." It asks candidates to put independent research, a thoughtful blog post or open-source work at the top of the resume.

The best AI jobs without a degree, in our view, tend to be these:

AI operations and support: helping customers deploy AI products.
Evals and data work: writing test cases, grading model outputs, building training data. Often contract work, so check the terms.
AI sales development and solutions: selling and demoing AI products, where a working demo beats a diploma.
AI engineering, for self-taught builders: possible with shipped projects and a public record, but expect a long portfolio track.

Research science is the exception, where graduate training still dominates. Our pillar guide on how to get a job in AI maps all the role families, and the AI jobs track on the 1752vc careers board can be filtered by level and time posted.

"Isn't a degree still worth more?"

On average, yes, and it would be dishonest to skip that. Per BLS data for 2025, workers 25 and older with a bachelor's degree had median weekly earnings of $1,578 and a 2.8 percent unemployment rate. High school graduates had $966 and 4.3 percent. Annualized, that gap is roughly $31,800 a year at the median. Many large employers and some promotion paths still lean on degrees too.

But.

Those are averages across every job in the economy, and the BLS itself notes they do not account for apprenticeships and on-the-job training. The comparison that matters for you is narrower: a specific tech role and a paycheck now, versus four years of tuition and lost wages. For some people the degree wins. For others it doesn't.

How to get a tech job without a college degree: a 90-day plan

Here is one illustrative plan for someone with 10 to 12 hours a week.

Days 1 to 15: pick the role and the credential. - Choose one role from the table above. - Read 30 recent postings for it and tally the skills and certifications that repeat. - Pick at most one certification that appears in a third or more of them.

Days 16 to 60: build proof. - Finish the certification, or one project that looks like the job (a home lab write-up, a portfolio site, a churn-reduction plan). - Write a resume that opens with skills and proof, not education. Put the education line last. - Apply to two or three registered apprenticeships in parallel.

Days 61 to 90: get seen. - Each week, apply to 8 roles posted in the past week and send 8 notes to people on those teams: 32 of each over four weeks. - Ask two people you know in tech for a referral or an introduction. In our view, a referral is often the most practical way around a degree filter. - Track each lead in a sheet: company, role, date posted, degree listed (yes or no), date applied, contact, referral (yes or no), stage, next step.

After a month, the degree column shows whether replies come mostly from postings without the requirement, which tells you where to aim next.

A note you can adapt:

Subject: [Role] opening, and something I built

Hi [Name], I applied for the [role] role and wanted to reach out directly. I don't have a college degree; I do have [certification or project, with a link] and [one result from past work, with a number]. I'd value 15 minutes if you think the skills fit, or a pointer to the right person. Thanks, [Name]

Common mistakes

Treating "no degree required" as a promise. It is permission to apply; referrals and proof still do the heavy lifting.
Stacking certificates no posting asks for. Two relevant ones beat six random ones.
Aiming first at software engineering at a big company. That is the door where the degree filter is tightest.
Hiding the gap. Dodging the education line draws more attention to it than stating it plainly.

Where we land

A degree is still a useful signal, and the data says employers lean on it more than their postings admit. But it is no longer the sole way in, and in some roles it is not even the main one.

Our suggestion: pick a role that hires on proof, add the credential it asks for, consider an apprenticeship, and use people to get past the filters. It's one route; your numbers may point to another.

The bottom line

Dropping the degree line was the easy part for employers.

Hiring you is the part you make easy for them.

Key takeaways

Many employers dropped degree requirements from postings, but the Burning Glass and Harvard Business School study found hiring of non-graduates rose only modestly, and 45 percent of firms changed in name only.
IT support, security, web development, sales and startup operations are the most common tech entry points without a degree; software engineering at large companies is the hardest.
Registered apprenticeships pay you to train and end with a job history, which can stand in for a degree.
Startups and many AI roles outside research hire on demonstrated work, so direct outreach with proof is often the fastest path.
Degrees still pay more on average per BLS data, so weigh your specific role and costs rather than the national median.

Frequently asked questions

What are the best tech jobs for people without a degree?

Common starting points are IT and network support, sales development, customer success, web development and startup operations, with cybersecurity as a strong next step after support experience. These roles tend to hire on certifications, portfolios or past results. Software engineering at large companies is possible without a degree but usually requires a long public track record.

Do startups hire people without college degrees?

Many do, especially at the seed and Series A stages, where founders often read applications themselves and care most about whether you can do the work now. A relevant work sample, a short direct note to the hiring manager and a referral usually matter more than an education line. Larger startups may add more formal screening as they grow.

Are tech apprenticeships worth it without a degree?

For many people, yes, provided the program is registered and leads to a real job. You are paid while you train, you get a mentor and you finish with a credential and work history. Ask which employers hired recent apprentices, what roles they landed in and what the pay was after the program.

Which AI jobs can you get without a college degree?

Outside research science, many AI roles hire on demonstrated skill. Common entry points include AI operations and customer support, evaluation and data annotation work, AI sales development, solutions roles and, for self-taught builders with shipped projects, AI engineering. Research roles at AI labs still lean heavily on graduate degrees.

Do companies that drop degree requirements actually hire people without degrees?

Some do and many don't. A Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Business School study of large firms found 37 percent meaningfully increased non-degree hiring after dropping the requirement, while 45 percent changed the posting but not their hiring. Referrals and strong work samples help most at firms where the old habits remain.

Sources

Disclaimer: This guide is for general education only and is not legal, tax or investment advice. Laws, market data and program terms change, so it may not reflect the latest developments or fit your situation. Treat it as a starting point, not a source of truth, and talk to a qualified lawyer, accountant or financial adviser before you make decisions.