Increased Demand for IT Professionals Heightens Tech Skills Shortage

IT job opportunities are on the rise but applicants vanish as skills shortage grips the sector, according to Broadbean Technology.

The nation needs to wise up and react quicker as the UK’s tech skills gap is continuing to grow, but with the number of candidates in IT dropping. 

According to the latest real-time statistics from Broadbean Technology, a network of job boards, its data revealed a 66% increase in demand for IT professionals between the third quarter of last year and Q3 2021.

However, application numbers fell 41% during Q3 2021, indicating a “decline in the readily available IT expertise that the county needs as the economy recovers”.

Alex Fourlis, Managing Director at Broadbean Technology, comments: “We’ve witnessed the impact that the skills shortage has had on logistics and supply chains, but this shortage of applicants isn’t just limited to HGV drivers – it’s a widespread challenge. The fact that we’re seeing an increased gap between the number of vacancies across IT and the number of people applying for these positions indicates that the professional services arena is facing a scarcity of talent that could soon reach a critical point.”

He adds: “This decline in IT applications is a concern that every business in the country should be wary of as it will affect us all. The shortage of specialist tech skills is an issue that has long been building in the country, and while the plans to ‘level up’ the country that the Prime Minister has outlined should help address this talent dearth to some degree, for the immediate demand, UK firms simply need to be able to tap into other talent pools easily, including international pipelines.”

It is also well known that UK firms need to digitise their businesses and workplaces in a world of hybrid working.

Broadbean Technology says its statistics suggest that employers are already beginning to feel the impact of this gap in supply and demand, with average salaries for permanent IT roles increasing £2,607 in 2021 as firms turn to financial incentives to compete for talent.

Views and numbers about tech jobs in the UK do crop up now and then.

As eWeek UK reported in September, the UK government was promoting positive vibes with news that the number of tech job vacancies in Edinburgh is the “highest of any UK city”.

According to data analysed by job search engine Adzuna for the UK’s Digital Economy Council and Tech Nation, IT-related vacancies now make up 13% of all UK job vacancies.

In Edinburgh and Glasgow, tech jobs make up an even higher proportion of roles – up 30% and 28% respectively. In fact, both cities have enjoyed an increase by more than a quarter in the past two years.

The top data science skills that employers are looking for in Scotland include machine learning, analytics, artificial intelligence, statistics and experience with Python. Data scientists have seen their average advertised salary increase by 31% over the past two years.

There is an increasing demand for senior-level employees across all areas of Scottish tech. For instance, 89% of available roles for IT system architects are all for senior positions.

The government notes that the key skills in demand for system architects include architecture, data management, and experience with Amazon Web Services.

Also in September, Viktor Prokopenya, Founder at VP Capital, discussed how an entirely different set of skills are needed to help London retain its “world-class financial industry”.

You can read the article ‘Don’t Learn to Code, Learn Data Science’ here.

Antony Peyton
Antony Peyton
Antony Peyton is the Editor of eWeek UK. He has 18 years' journalism and writing experience. His career has taken him to China, Japan and the UK - covering tech, fintech and business. Follow on Twitter @TonyFintech.
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