Jenaya Little

James MacDonald:
Welcome to the Newy Tech Jobs update for January 2020. So January was a pretty solid month, which is a good start for 2020, good continuation of 2019. So 219 was a really strong year in the Newcastle tech market can only say continued growth this year. There’s more and more companies hiring into their tech teams. They’re doing some custom dev work themselves, upgrades to their infrastructure. There’s a lot of work being done just across the board, really. Using technology to sort of help take their businesses forward. So not only pure technology companies, but more traditional companies investing in technology, which is a good sign for Newcastle. Really good time for any candidates in the Newcastle tech, scene so. Newcastle tech candidates will probably have multiple opportunities if they are willing to have a look at other opportunities outside where they’re currently at. So especially in the dev market.

So if you’re a dev and you’re not loving where you’re right, let’s have a chat. I’m sure you’ll get multiple opportunities for other companies who’d be looking for your services. So good sign for Newcastle tech scene in general. Good growth throughout 2019 and good stuff for January 2020. So January we had 129 jobs being posted on SEEK in technology in Newcastle. So that was up 59% month on month. So December a really quiet month. Very little companies looking to actually advertise and hire in December. Those that are probably looking at contracts or looking to sort of get on the front foot for people to start in January, but January is kicked off really strongly, 129 jobs. So big increase month on month, pretty similar to the year before. It’s actually down 4% but pretty similar across the board. I wouldn’t read anything into that sort of 4% mark there.

So the top of jobs being advertised is 70% of them are permanent opportunities. Once again pretty similar to most of 2019. I think Newcastle tech companies or Newcastle companies in general trying to hire tech staff realize how difficult it can be. So if you can get somebody on board let’s get them on board in a permanent fashion, keep them on board. I’m sure a lot of projects are ongoing or they’re looking for, once you get people in as continual work, therefore good technology candidates. Plus again, I think candidates have it a little bit of power in the market at the moment and aren’t going to accept short-term contracts unless those day rates are significantly higher.

When it comes to who’s actually advertising in January, it was actually a 50/50 split between recruiters and private advertisers. Traditionally that’s about 70% recruiters, 30% private advertisers, so I think what it shows is there’s a lot of companies coming back and kicking off the new year and thinking, “Okay, let’s try and hire into our teams. We’ll try and do it ourselves first.”

If that’s unsuccessful, then sort of put it to the recruiters in Newcastle. So it’s a good time. I always encourage our companies to give it a go. If you think you can hire into your teams are definitely going to go ahead and do that. The recruiters are there for a reason. Now there is a very real challenge in getting quality tech candidates out there. So I’m not fearful for my job or our industry, especially in the tech market in Newcastle.

When it comes to the type of jobs being advertised pretty similar to the trends of the last year. BA’s were the equal top so that 18% percent, I guess what that tries to show is, once again fresh new year, get some BA’s on board to kick off projects. The start of projects, new year, new budgets. A lot of companies BA coming in and start of the project and scope things out. So I think January big, big sort of rise there.

Dev’s equal top 18%. Dev’s have always throughout 2019 been really popular. Super difficult to come across really good quality dev. Dev’s in Newcastle market are devs have plenty of opportunities for all the companies depending on sort of their experience and in particular the tech stack that they’ve been working with.

And the third most popular help desk and tech support roles at about 14% of those roles of all roles were being advertised in that space. Help desk. Tech support’s always there. Most companies need it. I don’t say that ever sort of completely falling off a cliff. That’ll always continue to be probably at the bottom of the top three if not just falling out of that. So I think anyone in that sort of tech support market will continue to sort of have opportunities throughout 2020.

Thanks again for tuning into the first episode and Newy Tech Jobs for 2020. If you require any information, any other information, what’s going on in Newcastle tech scene in the jobs market and the hiring market recruiting, feel free to reach out to me. Hit me up on LinkedIn. Feel free to give me an email, james@jamesmacdonald.me. More than happy to have a chat, help inform people on what’s going on, especially if there’s anything sort of outside, what we’re delivering and these. Thanks again. Hope you found this informative. Enjoy your month.