The old adage 'love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life' certainly rings true for old boy Nilesh Thakkar.

The former Bolton School pupil returned to his old school to inspire the next generation.

He spoke to sixth form students about his career in developing computer games as part of the school's World of Work programme.

Nilesh is Director of Technical Program Management with Xbox Game Studios.

Nilesh, who left school in 1993, told how he has spent most of his career working in software, particularly in computer games.

He told the students there is more than a little truth in the aphorism ‘love what you do and you will never work a day in your life’.

Recalling his school days, he said he liked technology and computer games before the internet came along and remembered how he would spend hours making his own games. Having studied management science – management and maths - at Leicester, Nilesh explained how he then started work with a consultancy firm.

However, he said, after 17 years, he still had a yearning to make games, like he did as a child. This saw him move into the exciting world of making games.

Today Nilesh runs a team of program managers at Team Xbox. His job, he explained, is to make sure studios and their teams deliver on time, on budget and with all the game features that they set out to include. Considering the gaming industry, he said the UK has about 3,000 game companies making either PC games, mobile games or console games and that there are about 140 university courses tailored to game creation.

He informed the students that the industry is worth about £7 billion, which is way higher than the film industry. He also briefly spoke about the wide variety of jobs in the field. Drilling down to some of the detail in his own work, Nilesh talked his audience through the process of making a game from idea to finished product, using Forza Horizon 5 as an example.