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Bright Purple pride ourselves on being experts in Technology, IT and Business Change Recruitment. A large part of this is knowing our market inside out; the trends, the demand and the challenges for the tech industry.
While we regularly chat insights with our customers to help them make key hiring and business decisions (and for candidates to make career decisions!), we wanted to share these on a public level for those in the wider community.
Bright Purple Tech Job Insights
There are many valuable resources out there providing the latest stats on the tech job market and trends: our goal will be to share these key highlights from the previous quarter, as well as sharing key findings from our own business and the specific tech disciplines that we work with most.
From trending tech stacks to salary banding and jobs in demand, we hope to give concise, valuable updates that give you the best outlook on the industry.
We're a bit late reporting on last quarter (April-June), but we have to start somewhere, so please find our highlights from Q2 below.
We hope to add extra areas and stats over time, but do let us know if there's something we can add!
Below we've listed key highlights from both the wider tech industry and from Bright Purple's own reports. Click on a highlight to skip to that section, or scroll down to read through all the findings.
Industry Takeaways:
Bright Purple Takeaways
Industry Highlights
In June, it was reported that tech sector hiring had not only returned to pre-pandemic levels, but that it was actually at a five year high.
Statistics from Adzuna and Dealroom for the Government's Digital Economy Council have shown that tech jobs have been running consistently over 100,000 vacancies per week since April, and over 120,000 per week since the end of May.
IT and Tech vacancies now make up 12% of all UK job vacancies.
Tech Vacancies have soared to a 5 year high (data from Adzuna research)
The same Adzuna research showed that Software Developers, Data Analysts and Web Designers were in highest demand - good news for Digital Bootcamp/re-skilling academies like CodeClan who specialise in the two key areas.
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In April there were 9,783 Software Developer Job vacancies in the UK, a 73% increase from last year.
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Software Developer Jobs made up 1.05% of total advertised UK jobs
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This is very much in line with Bright Purple findings with 1.28% of live jobs being advertised as "Software Developer"
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Job titles with "Developer" featured (for various tech stacks) also made up 35% of Bright Purple vacancies in this time.
According to Tech Nation's June Report, 30% of all remote vacancies are in tech, with 1 in every 4 IT jobs being a remote opportunity.
This is very much in line with Bright Purple's findings for the quarter: over 22% of jobs we were hiring for between April-June were for a Remote Working vacancy.
The tech industry has always been more open to remote working (particularly contractors) in the past, so it's of no surprise that more businesses have adapted and are flexible to a remote arrangement as we progress to a post-covid era of working.
The Total Jobs Hiring Index which was launched in Q1 takes a look at the recruitment landscape across all sectors. Here are the key takeaways around the IT/tech sector:
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Of all businesses which recruited in Q2, 20% hired IT/tech positions
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IT/Tech firms reported a 40% increase in recruitment in Q2
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Looking to Quarter 3, 62% of IT and Telecomms businesses had confidence in recruiting the people they need.
Bright Purple Highlights
As with the general market growth in tech vacancies, Bright Purple are experiencing similar demand in tech roles as businesses bounce back from the pandemic and more companies embrace web and mobile-based tech.
In light of the demand we are continuing to expand our team, to keep up with filling exciting open roles in tech.
Product Based companies have been the most active in Q2 at 61% of our total jobs. We believe this is due to their being an increased demand for web and tech based applications from both companies and consumers. We anticipate this demand to continue going forward.
The Finance Sector has been consistent in Q2, however, we imagine many banks and similar companies will embrace the Agency Sector to support on mobile and web apps as competition picks up in this sector with the challenger banks.
71% of our total jobs have been permanent positions, and mainly for those clients who build mobile and web products.
There was a lot of concern about what the impact of the changes in law with IR35 would do to the contract market. However, we are seeing a high number of contract roles being released.
We are also seeing a higher ratio of contract roles being filled, which shows companies still need contractors and are moving quickly to fill the demands. We believe this demand will continue as more projects ramp up.
C#.Net and Java remain dominant, in-demand skillsets for both permanent and contract roles.
For C#.Net in particular, we believe this is mainly due to the highest demand being in the SME Product Sector where the Microsoft tech stack is mainly used. This sector has also been quick to embrace remote working and many companies intend on this being the standard going forward.
Salary banding for C# and Java Developers
From our own listings, the average salary for a C#.Net candidate was £45,000, and for Java roles, £47,500.
This is just short of the Scottish average according to data from IT Jobs Watch, which lists the median salary in the last 3 months for C# roles at £47,500 and at £50,000 for Java Roles.
In future reports we will look to provide a fuller breakdown of salary bandings for various skillsets, however handy tools like IT Jobs Watch and Adzuna Labour Market are great to play with if you'd like to dig deeper.
Managed Service Arrangements
Due to IR35 many companies are also embracing Managed Service to help create products, so we imagine this will also increase the demand of the Agency Sector.
If you are interested in discussing the benefits of a Managed Service arrangement, please contact kane.webster@brightpurple.co.uk to discuss how Bright Purple can help you.
As we are already a month into Q3, outlook is strong and we continue to fill many roles across permanent and contract opportunities, with similar patterns to Quarter 2.
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10% of new jobs so far this quarter are Remote Working opportunities
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C# and Java remain key skillsets, as does Agile Products and Delivery
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25% of new roles this quarter are for contract placements
Bright Purple CEO Nick Price says:
"While some industries are only now starting to see a return to business, technology has been busy for many months and it’s showing no signs of slowing, in fact in some skills it’s unrelenting! Everyday is now a race for talent and companies often find themselves in a 100m sprint final to get that candidate they really want, on board. Agility and flexibility to move quickly are key - a market awareness of the potential rarity of the skills you are recruiting are essential and taking up the opportunities now offered through remote working - there’s so much to consider.
We are busy on many assignments across tech, change and leadership hires and we are working hard to deliver solutions to our customer needs, finding ourselves in advisory positions more often these days, and filling roles at pace not seen since pre-pandemic days. Our customers themselves are doing amazing things across the globe, their opportunities are growing fast and with that the demand to bring in more talent to bolster their ranks is massive.
Looking ahead to the next quarter and beyond, all I can see as I engage with customers is that it’s going to get busier, as more investment pours into technology, especially in the fast-growing start up community globally. Every day the news seems to open with a story about the next unicorn, it’s exciting and dynamic and it is certainly pushing us all at Bright Purple to continue to not rest on our laurels, but to strive to better our customer service."
We are lucky to be at the heart of a thriving tech industry, with more than a third of Europe's tech Unicorns based in the UK, and our home of Edinburgh featuring several of them.
If you have any questions about our findings, or you'd like to chat to Bright Purple about your tech recruitment need or your next career move, please reach out to us!
Call us today: 0131 473 7030
or Email: enquiries@brightpurple.co.uk
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