&quot;there is no formal education before that.&quot;<p>I don&#x27;t know about the rest of the UK but Computing Science is on the curriculum at schools in Scotland - I studied computing at school in the early 80s and had projects doing 6502 assembler on an Apple (NB and I did <i>not</i> go to a fancy school).<p>Here is a SQA Advanced Higher paper - looks pretty good to me:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sqa.org.uk&#x2F;files_ccc&#x2F;ComputingScienceSQPAH.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sqa.org.uk&#x2F;files_ccc&#x2F;ComputingScienceSQPAH.pdf</a>