Tech sector accounts for one in four jobs advertised: Edinburgh among hot spots

One in four jobs being advertised in the UK is in the digital technology sector, with Edinburgh among the UK’s hot spots, according to new research.

Data on jobs search engine Adzuna, analysed by developer recruitment platforms CoderPad and CodinGame, reveals that of the 1.3 million or so jobs being advertised across the UK, more than 300,000 are tech/IT related.

Tech sector roles make up almost three times as many available vacancies as the next most popular sector, teaching, according to the report.

Breaking down the tech sector job ads by location, Newcastle and Edinburgh have the highest percentage of digital tech roles.

Newcastle has been identified as the fastest growing tech hub outside London. Almost three in ten roles currently being advertised in Newcastle are in the digital tech sector but Edinburgh is not far behind.

The Scottish capital has been singled out as the next big technology hub and the tech sector accounts for 29.1 per cent of all job vacancies in the city, according to the study.

Of all of the advertised tech positions, about 67,000 are developer roles - software developer (37,703) and software engineer (29,441) - with almost a third of those jobs in London (21,938).

London still leads the way in terms of the number of digital tech jobs - one in five tech sector roles being advertised on Adzuna is in the UK’s largest city.

Software developers and software engineers are said to be in high demand among the tech jobs boom. Picture: AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

Research released earlier this year suggested that Edinburgh had more potential than any other location across the UK to be a future technology hub.

BNP Paribas Real Estate said its locational analysis tool had determined that the Scottish capital has the potential to rival established tech hot-spots such as Cambridge and Manchester.

Housing affordability, a strong cultural offer and quality of life were established as the top metrics when looking beyond investment and business growth - of which Edinburgh scored the highest followed by Bristol and Glasgow in second and third places respectively.

Edinburgh was also recently identified as the UK’s top city for innovation outside of London.

Aude Barral, co-founder of CodinGame, said: “The digital tech sector has seen incredible growth over the past two to three years, and we continue to see unprecedented demand for skilled tech workers across the sector.

“Demand for software developers in particular is off the chart. Over a third of recruiters are planning to hire over 50 developers in 2022 and the percentage of those hiring 201-500 has more than doubled. Highly skilled developers can name their price with an abundance of offers to choose from.

“However, if companies are going to succeed in hiring the very best developers for their tech teams, they need to recognise that offering the highest salary won’t automatically seal the deal.

“When we polled our two million strong developer community recently, they ranked a technically challenging environment and flexible working above a competitive salary.

“It’s important that companies align themselves with developers’ needs and wishes, if their recruitment drive is going to bear fruit in a candidate-driven market.”