IT pros increasingly looking outside London for opportunities, claims report

London is still on top, but Birmingham is growing fast, claims Jobsite

IT pros are increasingly looking for opportunities outside London, according to new research from Jobsite.

After ploughing through five years' worth of job data, the company claims that Birmingham has evolved into a hotspot for highly skilled technology roles, competing with London for the best IT talent in terms of applications per vacancy (APV).

Between 2012 and 2017, the number of applications for technology positions in the city grew by 34.9 per cent, according to Jobsite making it the second fastest growing region for tech jobs in the UK.

Over the past few years, more than 6,000 technology companies have emerged in the region, boosting hi-tech employment opportunities.

These findings make for very positive reading, for both tech sector employers and jobseekers

The most sought-after roles include test analysts, project managers, network engineers and web developers.

London, though, still has the highest percentage of technology applications. In just five years, the number of people applying for roles grew by 77.3 per cent.

Here, business analyst, project manager, Java developer, .NET developers and front-end developer roles grew in particular.

Jobsite claimed that there is a sense of "competitiveness" in the London technology scene, despite the fact that the UK is set to leave the European Union within a year or so.

Cambridge - which has been a technology hotspot since at least the mid-1970s, partly fed by the University - is another city that has seen a recent influx of technology jobs, particularly in the areas of software development and medical sciences. It achieved a 30.3 per cent increase in applications over five years.

Cambridge has been the home of Sinclair Research and Acorn Computers, while semiconductor designer ARM, which was spun-out of Acorn Computers, is based in Cambridge.

Manchester and the emerging southern hubs are all showing excellent growth

However, perhaps surprisingly, Manchester lags behind London, Birmingham and Cambridge in terms of technology roles, with an APV rate of 28.2 per cent. This is despite the fact it is supposedly the heart of the so-called 'Northern Powerhouse'.

In Manchester, the most common roles are test analyst, IT project manager, general project manager, business analyst and web developer.

Bristol came in fifth place - again, like Cambridge, a city with a long-established technology sector, centred around the University - with an APV rate of 8.3 per cent. The most popular roles in the city are project manager, test analyst, business analyst, software engineer and web engineer.

IT professionals are evidently hungrier than ever for new positions

Jobsite CEO Nick Gold claimed that the research indicates that the British technology industry is constantly growing, and growing strongly. "These findings make for very positive reading, for both tech sector employers and jobseekers," he commented.

"In spite of fears in some camps of the UK losing competitiveness to oversees players as we prepare to leave the European Union, IT professionals are evidently hungrier than ever for new positions.

He added: "Perhaps even more impressive is the rapidly growing appetite for IT sector positions across regional tech hubs outside of London. Birmingham leads the charge here, not insignificantly taking the mantle away from the Northern Powerhouse.

"Regardless, Manchester and the emerging southern hubs are all showing excellent growth. The government's vision for a prosperous and unified 'tech nation' appears to be coming to fruition, as technology-based roles increasingly underpin the breadth of the country's professional services."