Are you surprised by the current UK technology jobs market? Advertising plus wider recruitment activities returning very few applicants?
Challenging jobs market (Spring 2021).
For those tech companies on a mission to find top software engineers, developers, data scientists or Board level executives right now, a lot of factors are in play that are making this extremely tough (to put it mildly).
What is it that motivates the top talent to choose a tech startup over a myriad of alternatives?
These are the most common reasons tech candidates give to RWA:
A strong growth in market interest in medical technology (MedTech) and biotechnology (Biotech) companies, driven by an ageing population, a global pandemic and increased healthcare spending, has seen the UK leading the way in the development of: medical devices; diagnostics and monitoring software; digital health tech; pharmaceutical manufacturing technologies and genomics.
Demand is growing for candidates with advanced digital skills, with 60% of employers expecting demand to continue rising in the next 5 years.
Research by the Learning and Work Institute (LWI) found that over one in three employers say they face a skills gap within their current workforce for advanced digital skills, while 41% have struggled to recruit workers with the advanced digital skills that they need.
The LWI is an independent policy research organisation that conducted research exploring digital skills and the future of the labour market in the UK.
The recruitment process is focused on speed, using metrics such as ‘time to hire’, timed technical tests and job descriptions littered with phrases including fast-paced, fast-moving, urgent requirement and deadline for applications.
As the push to diversify the IT sector picks up speed, so too has awareness of unconscious bias. Can technology-enabled ‘blind’ recruitment do a better job of identifying talent? In these more enlightened times, companies have strategies to beat a kneejerk reaction to an unfamiliar name, the “wrong” gender, or the suspect “gut feeling”.
Freedom of Movement ended on 31 December 2020. EU, EEA (Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein) and Swiss citizens living in the UK before this date need to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme to retain the right to live and work here.
The deadline for applying is 30th June 2021. Only those who have been granted indefinite leave to remain or have Irish Citizenship are exempt.
Applicants will either be given Pre-Settled or Settled status depending on how long they’ve been living in the UK.
During the past year, interest in UK jobs from candidates based outside the EU has increased by 20%, according to a new survey by Indeed.
For the first time in seven years, UK based jobs advertised on Indeed.com are attracting a greater number of clicks from outside the EU than from EU countries.
Interest from the EU has seen only a slight increase of 1.3% since 2019. Overall, there has been a steady decline in EU interest since the 2016 Brexit referendum as EU citizens will face visa restrictions for the first time with the end of freedom of movement on December 31st.
Richard Wheeler Associates is celebrating 33 years in business! By my maths that’s nudging a third of a century. RWA’s success has always come from identifying standout people for standout tech clients - through extreme quality and forging long term partnerships.
Top flight, ambitious, individuals and businesses within Cyber Security, MedTech, CleanTech & Renewables, AI & Data Analytics, IoT, technology startups. Along the way we’ve helped build tech businesses from the ground up and are still doing so today.
It’s clear that with freedom of movement ending in a handful of weeks, tech firms in the UK fear an immediate shortage of talent and lack of access to talent pools and technical expertise as a result. For many years the sector has benefited from accessing talent by tapping into the flexible EEA labour market and importing talent from further afield when needed.