Andrew Hunter, Adzuna.co.uk, takes a look at the drop off in tech hiring across March and April
U.K tech hiring activity has fallen 31% in the last month with over 25,000 job vacancies lost between March & April, according to job sites Adzuna.co.uk and WorkinStartups.com. More than 50% of the U.K’s tech companies have dialed back on hiring, many Unicorns are furloughing staff en masse and, with 38 job seekers on average per job, the technology job market hasn’t been this competitive for candidates since the 2008 financial crisis.
Britain’s top 100 startups & technology companies were analysed and ranked by comparing hiring behaviour from January to April 2020. The distribution of tech jobs around the country, by sector and by job title were also analysed to determine where tech jobseekers should still be looking in the face of the Coronavirus crisis.
The study shows huge variation in hiring behaviour company by company, but overall showed that more than 50% of U.K tech companies have either seriously ramped back on hiring or have frozen it altogether in the last 30 days. With mass redundancies/furloughing across the sector and 10’s of 1000’s of ‘new’ tech workers now looking for jobs, the tech job market is the most competitive it has been for over a decade with over 38 candidates on average per vacancy.
Airbnb, Google & Facebook have all evidently scaled back European hiring efforts and Fintech’s like Monzo and Starling, who have brought on staff at a staggering pace over the past couple of years, are now furloughing employees. Other scaleups such as Habito, Treatwell & Carwow have frozen recruitment altogether, likely reflecting the challenges that proptech and transport businesses are currently facing. On the flip side, the analysis shows companies such Transferwise (45 live vacancies) and Revolut (324 live vacancies) continue to hire at normal levels at this stage of the crisis, while subscription delivery services Gousto, Hellofresh and Oddbox are all scaling up efforts to bring on new employees after likely seeing an uptick in product demand. Amazon (1,000+ live vacancies), Deliveroo (100+ live vacancies) & Babylon Health (15 live UK vacancies) are also ramping up their teams, as Britons function more and more from home.
Marketing, Social Media & I.T sales jobs in tech companies have been the hardest hit, with advertised vacancies dropping over 60% month-on-month. Engineering jobs have weathered the storm the best, with hiring for C++, Java, Ruby & PHP developers down only 20%. Unsurprisingly, tech companies operating within the Hospitality & Travel sectors have, in the majority of cases all but paused recruitment for the foreseeable.
London & the South East is currently suffering the biggest hiring slump (-40%). Surprisingly, Scotland’s ‘Silicon Glen’ hiring community is showing a little more resilience in the face of the crisis. Tech hiring in Scotland remains bullish with over 3,000 jobs still live and comparatively little overall decline (-8%).
