Signs of recovery in London’s tech market as job vacancies increase by 26%
- New tech job roles in London increased by 10% in June and 26% in May
- 28% of all tech roles advertised in London are for Software Development & Engineering
- Tech hires in public sector & not-for-profit increased by 72% this year
- 29% of all tech roles advertised in London come from the Banking & Financial Services sector
London’s bruised technology sector is showing its first signs of recovery with new tech job roles in tech firms increasing by 10% in June and 26% in May.
When looking at technology roles based in non-tech companies, London job volume was only marginally down in the past month (-1.52%) and saw a small uptick of +11.48% in May.
However, the new report from recruitment specialists Robert Walters and leading jobs market intelligence firm Vacancysoft, reveals that if job volume for tech-based roles continues at the pace it is this year then London would still be -54.2% down when compared to 2022.
Says Ben Litvinoff – Associate Director, Technology at Robert Walters:
“Whilst it is great to see job volume increase in the past few months, it would be amiss to not acknowledge that demand for technology professional sky-rocketed during and post-pandemic – so a lot the decline we are seeing in roles is more so a levelling out process, where job vacancies now are on-par with what we saw pre-Covid (2019).
“The early signs of job flow returning is linked to considered and business-critical hires, the return of transformation and change projects which may have been put on hold at the start of this year, and investor activity slowly returning leading to a rise in demand for developers and infrastructure specialists.”
Adds James Chaplin – CEO of Vacancysoft:
“While tech companies may have cut back on their recruitment this year, the industry is taking an ever increasingly important role in the London economy. With that we are forecasting the sector to rebound next year, as the economy normalises.”
Mid-Year Turnaround
Early March saw the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank – sending shockwaves through the global tech market, with investors around the world holding back to see what the fallout may be.
The following month saw tech giant Meta layoff 4,000 employees, with Google’s parent company Alphabet announcing 12,000 job losses at the start of this year, and Twitter’s new CEO Elon Musk stating that he had cut company headcount by 80% since taking over at the backend of 2022.
The impact was certainly felt in London, with tech job roles within tech companies plummeting by -50.4% in April (vs the previous month), and in non-tech firms by -37%, according to the Robert Walters report.
However, job creation for software developers & engineers has returned to pre-pandemic levels – which now accounts for 28% of all London-tech roles that are currently advertised.
Tech Management and Infrastructure roles have also increased in prominence – accounting for 23% and 14% of all roles advertised for, respectively, a +2% increase on the past few years.
