I recruited a lot of C++ devs as a hiring manager in London between 1997 and 2010. I never hired a candidate without at least two years real day to day experience in a real commercial environment, shipping real code. The C++ learning curve is much steeper than C#, Java, Python simply because of pointers, memory management, and the greater complexity of compiling and linking. Back in the mid 90s C++ was a mainstream language. But the rise of C#, Java & Python means that C++ has rightly been abandoned for generic enterprise development, and is now only used where performance and low level integration requirements make it necessary: HFT, gaming, embedded, OS dev. Technical standards are high in those areas. There is another area where C++ is still used that may give you an "in": legacy systems. There are still a lot of old mid 90s Windows C++ MFC systems out there, and their owners often find that work hard to resource as it's so unglamorous. So I suggest trawling jobserve.com and indeed.co.uk for "C++ MFC C#", then sell yourself as a C#er keen to learn C++. Good luck!