What’s Happening in Manchester’s Tech Scene

AUGUST 2021

Over recent weeks, our Technology & IT Recruitment team have been inundated with clients and candidates wanting to learn more about what is causing the current unrest in the market.

We caught up with Jack, our Technology & IT Recruitment Manager, to discuss all things tech to shine a light on what he’s seeing…

Technology as a market has never been so in demand & buoyant

Big Investments

Gone are the days where your requirement is niche to you. What do I mean by this? Well back when I originally joined the world of Tech recruitment in 2015, I found that businesses held a competitive advantage in the market which often fell into one of three categories (which of course can overlap). These advantages were often Competitive Salaries, Tech Stack or Organisational Culture. On occasion there would be hubs which were open to the more modern approaches to remote / hybrid working and more, but typically businesses would find their perfect candidates due to either the salary they offered, the tech they worked on or the culture they instilled within the team.

Fast forward 6 years to the Tech world of today, and competition has NEVER been higher. After the region has seen a wealth of funding into Tech Start-Ups, we’ve seen a market shift which has allowed Funded Start-Ups to scale rapidly (quicker than ever in fact!). The term ‘well-funded’ is a huge buzzword on job adverts, as ‘Start-Ups’ have been able to scale to ‘Market Disruptors’. It’s within the Market Disruptor space in which the Tech & IT market has seen it’s biggest shake ups.

Plenty of Opportunity

There’s a continual loop associated with well-funded market disruptors; new platforms or businesses are generally more attractive to investors when developed and hosted on the most secure and scalable technology. This leads the vacancies for candidates which offer exciting tech within a greenfield environment. Once the beta product is created and funding can be secured, investors are required to inject a higher amount for ‘development phase’ start ups to secure the talent needed to physically build the product. Equally, it is common for investors to offer higher funding for more secure platforms and there is no way to achieve this without a strong Tech & IT function. When the business officially releases their platform, the proposition changes (from a candidate stance) from Greenfield to Brownfield, and hence the churn in talent begins as candidates vie for a new, challenging position.

A Shift in Power = Increased Benefits!

This cycle is happening continuously in the industry. As a result, we have seen a gradual drop in the length of average employment across Tech roles due to the sheer availability for exciting roles which offer slightly more ‘modern’ tech. Despite the leading talent retention strategies which are seeing amazing offerings such as share options, unlimited holidays, training budgets and more, candidates are still being attracted to new roles under the shining ‘Greenfield’ lights. Not only does the increased in demand lead to a candidate shortage, it also results in a significant raise in candidate salary demands. Every candidate we place tends to have at least two other opportunities in their pipeline, so a major competition point is to increase the salary offering. On the flip side, businesses who are not willing or able to increase their salary offerings are finding they are searching in an ever smaller pool of available talent (who naturally become more junior for the same salary as a result!).

If you want to take advantage of this exciting shift in the industry, then check out all our job opportunities in Technology here!