In Switzerland, we have the dual education system [1]. This means highschool students usually choose a profession while they're still in school and go for an apprenticeship after graduation. An apprenticeship in ICT-professions takes 4 years and when finished successfully they receive the "Federal Certificate of Competence".

There is a program called "Informa" [2] which validates the knowledge of experienced craftsmen and gives them a chance to receive the same kind of degree like apprentice graduates. Which also makes them eligible to further education paths, like higher professional schools (to get a diploma if you like).

If you want to move to Switzerland, you don't have to worry about the language. Many IT-companies here are multi cultural and speak both German and English. We have a high quality of life here, the goverment is friendly and our laws favours employees.

I work for a small but successful company in Zurich. We'll move to a bigger office in January 2014 and need skilled developers to fill it :) We mainly create web applications and other cloud solutions, but also windows apps and banking software. We primarily use C#. Oh... and we don't care about certificates and degrees. We need skill, not paper.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me - dashdot at dashdot dot ch.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system [2] http://www.informa.modellf.ch/index.html