British tech salaries trail behind the rest of the world, claims pay study

Recruiter pay survey suggests British IT pros should 'go west' to earn the best

Salaries of technology professionals based in the UK are among the lowest in the world, according to research published this week.

Online recruiter Hired made the claims in its latest Global State of Salaries report.

The study claims that tech workers in the UK can expect to earn around £58,000 annually. Hired claims that the average salary tech salary on offer has dropped by 17 per cent since 2015.

It also claims that as a result of the continued uncertainty surrounding Britain's decision to leave the European Union there has been a seven per cent decline in the number of British firms hiring tech professionals from Europe.

This comes despite evidence of a tightening labour market across the UK economy and increasing pay settlements.

However, the report also claimed that tech companies are willing to pay more for foreign talent than for domestic IT staff. Tech workers willing to relocate to the UK could make £12,000 more than their British counterparts, the report suggests.

The report, though, suggests that UK tech workers should 'go west', with IT staff in London earning an average of 42 per cent less than people with similar skills working in San Francisco, California. They also earn an average of 28 per cent less than IT pros living in New York.

Perhaps contradicting the report's earlier claim that IT salaries had dropped by 17 per cent since 2015, the recruitment site also claimed that UK tech salaries have increased by 'only' 1.24 per cent over the past year, against an official inflation rate of 2.8 per cent.

In comparison, Hired claimed that San Francisco and New York salaries grew by five per cent during this period.

"We looked through our 2017 data on technology workers, including software engineers, designers, product managers, and data analytics roles," claimed the company, explaining its methodology.

Hired added that product managers earn the most in the technology industry, with JavaScript, Java and Python being the most in-demand coding skills. Salaries in this area can reach $145,000.

"Every business needs a digital presence to compete in today's market, and tech workers are in high demand because of it," said Hired in the report.

"Aside from a slight salary dip for data analytics roles in 2016, salary offers for every role on our platform have continually increased since 2015.

"While average salary offers continue to rise, not all skillsets are created equal. Product management roles were offered the most on average."