A BRIGHT
TECH FUTURE
The nationwide jobs and skills building the UK tech sector
Executive summary
The UK is a hotbed of tech talent, and there are opportunities nationwide. Digital jobs and skills are underpinning the growth of the UK's thriving tech sector, which in turn is creating high-productivity jobs at scale.
With over 2.1 million people working in UK digital tech in 2018, the tech economy is a bigger employer than sectors like Hospitality (1.3m), Construction (1.9m) and Financial Services (1.2m). In addition, the UK is one of the top destinations for attracting global tech talent, home to the world's first technology visa, with a world-leading migration system that includes the Tier 1 Exceptional Talent, Startup and Innovator visas.
Large tech corporates, as well as startup and scaleup businesses are providing inclusive and accessible jobs. And you don’t have to be a ‘Developer’ to work in a tech company. Sales, Account Management, HR, Legal and Finance are some examples of the type of roles that are in high demand in tech companies.
This report shows the changes in the demands in the digital technology employment market over time, but also, how sought-after skills have evolved due to the changing nature of this digital world.
First, we looked at Digital tech jobs in the UK as we currently stand, to provide insight on salary levels and productivity.
Second, we looked at UK tech vacancies, using data from Adzuna. Job adverts can help us to measure the demand for digital jobs and skills. When we refer to digital tech roles, we mean digital tech roles in digital tech companies (like a data scientist in a software development company); non digital tech roles in a tech company (like an accountant in that same software firm); and digital tech roles outside the digital tech sector (like a software developer in a car manufacturing company). Our analysis captures all three groups of jobs - under the digital economy.
We are able to offer fine grained regional, and city based insights. We found that Belfast, for example, is specialised in digital technology from an employer demand perspective. Tech vacancies account for 24% of total vacancies and over the period 2015 - 2018, they grew by 120%.
Online job advertisements are a source of timely information on the labour market. In addition to high volumes of data (we look at over 70 million UK adverts), job adverts also offer more granular data than other ways of capturing skills, like surveys, as they allow employers to describe their skill needs precisely, without generalisation.
In this section we look at seniority, salaries, and model cost of living dynamics in UK tech clusters for digital tech roles. Because earning are all relative to the location in which the role is based, or where the prospective employee will be resident.
Finally, we get under the skin of digital tech roles to determine the skills required for these jobs. This allows a practical focus on what people in the labour market, or about to enter the world of work, to assist with skills development. We will be exploring this further throughout 2019 and 2020.
Sponsor
Partners
We would like to thank The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and the Digital Economy Council.
In creating this report, the Tech Nation Insights team used data from Adzuna and the Office for National Statistics.
Key statistics
Tech is growing job opportunities across the UK
the most in demand tech position across all clusters
in the UK
the tech sector,
like accountants,
HR, and legal
professionals
digital tech
job vacancies
than
manufacturing
digital tech
job vacancies
than creative job
vacancies
UK tech jobs
There are 2.1 million jobs in the digital tech economy
To measure the total number of digital tech jobs across the economy, we used data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Annual Population Survey (APS).
This is a survey-based sample of the UK population – on individual people rather than businesses. To get UK-wide data on people working in tech jobs from the survey, we have to make sure that the sample of people reflects the broader UK population – so we have to use multipliers from the ONS.
But this kind of analysis does not measure the number of direct jobs created by digital tech companies. To understand the impact and benefits of digital tech we need to have reliable data not only on the number of tech jobs across the economy but also jobs, performance and productivity indicators for the sector itself.
To do this, we use official data from the ONS Business Structure Database (BSD), which we also use to look at the performance of tech companies. This allows us to have refined data that can be relied upon as the most accurate count of direct jobs created by the digital tech companies across the country.
We looked at all UK businesses
This analysis is based on a comprehensive look at all UK businesses that are PAYE or VAT registered. This means that using BDS data will provide us not only with the number of direct jobs created by tech companies but also helps us understand the performance of these companies. Viewed together, the two sets of data will help us understand all people working in digital tech.
The data on digital tech companies also contains financial information, as well as employment. This means that we can have reliable data on productivity. To get a true picture of jobs in digital tech, we need to look at performance, as well as quantity of jobs – this cannot be obtained from the APS alone.
As well as a UK wide understanding of digital tech jobs, it is important to break the 2.1 million jobs figure down to a regional, cluster based view on jobs.
This table gives a run down of the jobs statistics for some of key UK clusters, including salaries and productivity.
Digital tech jobs in UK tech clusters
| UK Cluster | Digital economy employment (2017) | Digital tech jobs across the economy (2017) i.e. software developer | Non digital tech jobs in tech companies (2017) e.g. HR | Digital tech job openings created (2018) | Digital economy jobs to city population, ratio (as of 2019) | Median salary across all digital tech roles (2018) | Median salary across all type of roles |
| Cambridge | 52,196 | 36,693 | 21,190 | 85,679 | 50% | £39,000 | £38,000 |
| Reading | 100,507 | 42,398 | 15,711 | 48,742 | 33% | £40,000 | £37,000 |
| Oxford | 37,458 | 25,637 | 13,816 | 72,844 | 25% | £36,000 | £34,000 |
| Belfast | 60,041 | 51,071 | 42,101 | 16,853 | 20% | £40,000 | £34,000 |
| Newcastle | 35,674 | 25,416 | 15,158 | 29,760 | 11% | £35,000 | £33,000 |
| London | 574,562 | 256,082 | 62,398 | 915,471 | 6% | £53,296 | £42,000 |
| Leeds | 46,845 | 34,742 | 22,639 | 88,042 | 6% | £35,000 | £32,000 |
| Bristol | 51,753 | 26,999 | 2,245 | 86,247 | 5% | £35,520 | £34,000 |
| Manchester | 100,520 | 69,837 | 39,154 | 164,043 | 4% | £35,000 | £34,000 |
| Edinburgh | 48,118 | 38,414 | 28,710 | 44,879 | 4% | £42,500 | £37,000 |
| Birmingham | 59,131 | 41,550 | 23,969 | 75,401 | 2% | £37,500 | £35,000 |
| Sheffield | 28,243 | 22,034 | 15,825 | 26,059 | 2% | £32,500 | £30,000 |
| Cardiff | 26,148 | 21,508 | 16,868 | 24,923 | 2% | £35,000 | £33,000 |
Source: Tech Nation 2019; Adzuna
Digital tech job roles and salaries
| Role | Digital job openings (2018) | Median Salary | Cost of living adjusted – best place to work | Median salary (London) |
| Software Developer | 130,158 | £39,430 | Belfast | £55,000 |
| Front End Developer | 32,431 | £35,286 | London | £50,000 |
| Project Manager | 31,721 | £47,500 | Glasgow | £56,000 |
| Consultant | 23,879 | £55,000 | Sheffield | £60,000 |
| Devops Engineer | 23,690 | £50,500 | London | £67,500 |
| IT System Architect | 17,340 | £63,857 | Cardiff | £77,500 |
| Full Stack Developer | 16,753 | £40,964 | Belfast | £55,000 |
| Analyst | 10,452 | £33,929 | Edinburgh | £45,000 |
| Python Developer | 10,100 | £43,893 | Glasgow | £60,000 |
| Data Engineer | 6,950 | £35,553 | London | £60,000 |
| Data Scientist | 6,287 | £45,714 | Leeds | £60,000 |
Source: Tech Nation 2019; Adzuna; Numbeo
UK vacancies
Roles are rising
According to analysis carried out by the ONS, the UK employment rate has increased since Q1 last year. Employment is up 76.1% from 75.3%.
The jobless rate of 3.9% is well below the EU average of 6.5%.
The demand for jobs in the UK has been increasing, this is reflected in the figure below (ONS data) :
Vacancies in the UK (2001-2018)