Question: After graduating from university in the UK, I have heard multiple careers advisors say that it is inadvisable to leave your first career role before you have gained at least two years experience.

However I feel my current role is currently holding back my career progress as I am unable to properly learn industry standard technologies, and is affecting my health due to unbearable amount of stress caused by poor management.

I have worked nearly a year and a half at this company but it is still my first career job. Will this look bad to future employers? I work in a sector that currently has lots of job opportunities.

Answer: 
There are no true "rules" when it comes to jobs and job hunting. I left my first job out of school almost exactly 6 months after starting.

I felt the same as you. My position was very unfulfilling, involved managing the maintenance of equipment built before I was born. If felt that if I stayed, it would impact my future career prospects.

I ended up changing jobs and my career has not suffered at all. I even left the company I moved too after only 2 1/2 years, which led to a series of company/title changes due to my company constantly getting bought and sold (2 sales in 5+ years I was there). After 5 years in the same role though, I interviewed with a massive corporation that has very strict hiring policies, and I got the position. So despite the job/companies changes after 8 years of my career, I have not had any issues, nor have I ever been asked "why did you leave you first job after 6 months".

In short, frequently changing jobs can be a red flag, it usually will not be an issue if you show that you do not make a habit of it. Leaving 1 job (even if it is your first) after 18 months is not a significant problem, but if you change every job after 18 months, it could be an issue later in your career.
The problem is giving off the perception of someone who will likely ditch the job soon, for whatever reason. While you can usually explain the short stays during the interview, that's not much use if you don't even get invited to the interview due to the CV.

In your case it's perfectly fine to look for a new job. There are lots of bad jobs and everyone with some experience is aware of that.

**The problem comes after changing the job.** Now you've got one relatively short job on the CV, which isn't much of a problem. But if the new job sucks and you'll quit the new job or are let go after say 6 months, the combination of the 2 will look rather bad. If you stayed on for 2-3 years in the first job it's less likely that the 6 month job afterwards would be seen as a red flag.