UK Tech Sector Reports Continuing Growth In IT Employment

IT recruitment firm Experis has published a new Tech Cities Job Watch report for the first quarter of 2015 in the UK, showing a welcome increase in permanent positions in the technology industry.

The total number of IT jobs advertised was up 9 per cent since the previous quarter, hitting 59,000, and permanent positions rose by an impressive 18%, while cloud specialists were definitely in demand, with 8,250 jobs advertised as up for grabs, an increase of almost a quarter, and IT security roles were up even more strongly, with a 32% increase to 6,400.

Both these positions grew even faster in the UK’s ‘Tech Cities’ (London, Birmingham, Bristol, Brighton, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sheffield), with IT security jobs up 65% there, and cloud roles growing 13% faster in Tech Cities outside London.

The highest paid cloud roles, on average, were in Cambridge with an average salary of £50,034, with the average overall IT salary for a permanent tech job up three per cent, to £48,820.

Big data paid the highest average salary out of those IT disciplines covered in the report, hitting £59,899, with an average in London of £62,853 – though in this case, London was beaten out by Glasgow, which had an average big data salary of £64,517.

Geoff Smith, Managing Director, Experis Europe, commented: “Q1 is commonly when companies release their annual recruitment budgets. This, combined with growing economic confidence for the coming year, has likely contributed to growth in permanent recruitment activity.

“Across the UK’s Tech Cities, a greater take-up of Cloud and E-commerce services has also increased security requirements. High profile cybercrime events over the past year have illustrated the severe brand and material damage that can hit underprepared companies. This has put security hiring high on the radar.”

Author: Darren Allan