Digital jobs boom continues in London

Post date: Feb 02, 2017 10:13:51 AM

People with digital jobs in the United Kingdom are in a better position than the majority of their counterparts in mainland Europe, according to a recent report by Stack Overflow Careers.

The research revealed that developers in the U.K. earn a yearly salary of £45,000, netting more than coders in every other European country except Denmark. Moreover, unemployment is virtually nonexistent among qualified developers in London, with just 1.5 per cent of surveyed professionals hailing from the capital reporting that they were jobless. Indeed, the tech boom currently being experienced by the city has generated nearly one-third of all new jobs in the area.

Employees take the upper hand

“The U.K. remains a hotbed for developers and the boom in London is sucking up all the available coding talent,” commented Joel Spolsky, CEO and co-founder of Stack Overflow Careers’ parent company, Stack Exchange. “The market for developers is incredibly tight, which in turn drives up wage inflation and poses a huge challenge for the tech community as it strives to build on its global potential.”

In other words, an IT recruitment agency in London can expect demand for developers with highly sought-after coding skills and experience to equal or even exceed supply.

With their abilities in such demand, developers have the upper hand in employee/employer negotiations about wages, hours, flexible working arrangements, etc. – and, in many cases, they are aware of their powerful position, researchers found. According to the report, nearly four in 10 (38 per cent) of developers in the U.K. have changed jobs in the past year, and more than half would consider leaving their current employers if an interesting opportunity presented itself.

“Market conditions within the IT sector currently favor employees.”

Starting off on the right foot

Market conditions within the IT sector currently favour employees, which means companies offering digital jobs in London may run into difficulty in their attempts to attract and retain technical talent.

Starting off on the right foot

Market conditions within the IT sector currently favour employees, which means companies offering digital jobs in London may run into difficulty in their attempts to attract and retain technical talent.

When interviewing a candidate with highly sought-after skills, company representatives may feel as if they are the ones being sized up by the potential employee, not vice versa. Given the current competitive hiring conditions, they may well be correct. British developers polled as part of Stack Overflow Careers’ research pointed to several aspects of the hiring process that could make or break the decision to sign on with a company:

• • An introduction to the existing development team (cited by 50.7 per cent of respondents)

  • Being shown the space where they will be working (42.8 per cent)

  • Prior knowledge of who will be interviewing them and what’s on the agenda for the meeting (34.3 per cent)

Organizations looking to make roles at their enterprises seem particularly enticing should know that remote working opportunities appear to be of particular interest to in-demand IT professionals. In fact, almost half (44 per cent) of the British developers who took part in Stack Overflow Careers’ survey said they valued having the option to telecommute.