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We're back for our quarterly insights: July - September 2023
Welcome to Bright Purple's latest Tech job market report! We will look at job market figures, highlights and announcements from the past few months, as well as look ahead to the last three months of the year.
Industry highlights:
Bright Purple highlights:
Industry Highlights
Continued Demand for Graduates
Everywhere we look we seem to read about a continued demand for employers to hire graduates. This trend is projected to continue, with 88% of new jobs (UK) expected to be graduate level roles by 2035.
While job creation and job outlooks looks good for graduates on paper, the question around where those graduates will come from, and the bigger issue of skill-shortage across many industries, remains. At Bright Purple we have also noticed a decrease in the demand for graduate hires from our clients. The traditional route of of university is of course an option, but the recent closure of CodeClan has directly removed one route in which future tech workers gained skills and qualifications. A tech report by Gigged.AI shows that an overwhelming amount of UK businesses are experiencing large tech-skill-shortages internally, with only one in ten surveyed businesses reporting that they did not experience or suffer from a lack of skilled IT workers.
Source: Gigged.AI "DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN CRISIS: THE IMPACT OF SKILL SHORTAGES, TALENT TRENDS AND BURNOUT ON THE UK’S TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY"
The GERS report shows that Scottish revenue increased by £15 million, with a national deficit that is falling at a faster pace than the rest of the UK. The report highlights large energy sector revenues, as well as the potential for quantum technology to play a huge role in the economy; estimating that the sector could be worth up to £1 billion by 2030.
Novuna Business Finance surveyed 1,100 small business decision-makers across the UK, and found that Scotland has the most positive business growth outlook, with 35% expecting business growth over the next few months. This is the highest figure recorded in the last five quarters. Within Scotland, Glasgow takes the top spot for business creation.
Computer Weekly's annual diversity in tech event is happening this month (October 11). Every year, a " tech hall of fame" and a short-list of the 50 most inspiring women in UK tech is announced, with the winner picked based on public votes.
When the award first launched just over ten years ago, the list only included 25 names. While it is great to see the short-list (and long-list!) growing, it is discouraging to read recent reports showing that the total number of women working in tech in the UK has dipped in the last few quarters, and over a third of women who leave their role leave for new jobs unrelated to tech. We recommend reading Tech Talent Charter's Attrition in tech report which outlines things like Women's perception of a career in tech and Why women leave tech roles. The TTC report is based on a survey of 500 women working in digital, IT and tech roles, and can be a great resource for employers who are looking to tackle the gender gap in UK tech.
The "STEM Returners" programme is helping STEM professionals who have taken a career break re-enter the job market, with the aim of helping employers find and hire skilled people back into the industry. The programme, backed by the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology and the Women's Engineering Society, aims to target a number of gaps and hurdles within STEM, including diversity and prevalent skills-shortage.
Source: THE STEM RETURNERS INDEX 2023
Bright Purple Highlights
By reviewing and discussing the feedback from our recent Investors In People assessment, we found that many employees expressed an interest in more regular training and development opportunities. This was found across the whole business; from sales and admin, and from directors to juniors.
On the back of this we have implemented a monthly on-site training day for the sales team, covering a range of topics. Our Head of Resourcing recently completed a short course in Management Essentials, and our Director of Testing and Projects is currently completing a course on Mergers and Acquisitions. We look forward to developing our training and development resources and budget for all team members.
'Tis the season for events! At the end of September we started attending some local tech conferences - the Scotsman's annual Data Conference, ScotSoft and a number of events in the Scottish Fintech Festival. The fintech festival runs until October 12, so there is still time to attend! We have a lot more conferences, meetups and social events booked for this quarter - let us know if there is a tech event we cannot miss!
Bright Purple Sales Director Kane says:
"What a yo-yo of a year 2023 has been in terms of agency recruitment. 2021 and 2022 were without a doubt candidate driven with an abundance of clients and choice for candidates to choose from, and endless optimism around remote and flexible working models. Ambitious scale-up tech companies were hiring on mass, start-ups were cropping up everywhere, consultancies were winning projects faster than they could deliver and the corporate clients were back in full swing. The candidate was king and record placements were made by most agencies, including ourselves.
2023 has sadly not seen that trend continue, and market correction seems to have taken place. Less jobs, more candidates due to redundancy and remote and flexible working being curtailed. Sadly, we are also seeing a decrease in demand for entry level and graduate hires based on market conditions and likely the new hybrid / remote world where training and development seem to have taken a back seat and just be harder to deliver.
Luckily the market correction is showing signs of plateauing, and the green shoots of recovery are beginning to blossom... Ironically as we approach winter. Business is picking up pace, and 2024 looks to be a year where companies hire and make up for lost ground in terms of roadmaps and budgets."
That's a wrap on our 2023 Q3 insights - please get in touch if you have any queries about our findings.
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