In my experience, i have worked at Lhr for 2 different companies covering 20 or so different airlines, it is or ( was ) the best job you can have on the ground.
You are not tied to the office get to meet flight crews and have a good rapport with the gate staff, all this is as long as you don't panic and take it all too serious, and believe that you are god !
I have found too many people get too high opinions of themselves once they reach Dispatch / TCO / Load Control etc whatever you want to call it, at the end of the day all you need is common sense / basic maths and good communication skills.
At my previous company we did the full works Load control / Dispatch / Flight plans etc etc but nowadays Many of the Handling agents are splitting the job to save costs, which means standards have dropped while egos have risen, Many of the long haul carriers now have Load Control centralised in places like Dallas, Bangkok, Hong Kong etc and the staff at LHR don't have to make snap trim decisions to save time an example i heard about was a TCO demanded that 20 empty ake uld's be loaded per trim on a flight which consequently delayed loading, this was because he would have had to call BKK to change it, by having Load Contol locally this would not have happened.
I think that with cost savings prevailent throughout the industry that Centralised Load control will become more and more common which in turn will downgrade the Dispatcher to nothing more than a reporter or an extension of a senior Check in agent.
I would reccommend doing more on the Ops side of things although at the bigger Airports this tends to be Dead Mans shoes.
I have now left Dispatch for the above reasons for i see no future in the role and the pay scales have dropped dramatically