IT has always suffered from an image problem; a trend that Sneak believes begins way back in school. It's just not cool to want to grown up and become the next Steve Jobs, no matter how natty his polo necks are. Well, new research by security vendor SmoothWall has found that even those who end up in the industry may actually have a secret hankering to do or be something else.

The vendor surveyed attendees at last month's Infosecurity Europe show in London, and found that 15 per cent of IT managers would actually have preferred to be pilots. Astronaut, footballer and doctor were also popular choices for the IT crowd, although Bruce Lee, Bill Gates and "seagull" were slightly less predictable.