It’s been an interesting year so far for tech-sector recruitment. After a promising start and as the year has progressed, economic factors have been on many hiring managers’ minds, and did lead to much-publicised redundancies earlier this year with some household-name technology companies, driven by rising costs and challenging markets. However, primarily this affected operational and client-support positions rather than core engineering disciplines – given the perpetual challenge of finding the most skilled engineers.
Despite widespread concern that this was the start of a "domino effect", this did not in fact manifest – and the vast majority of tech-sector jobs have remained secure during this time. Companies are mindful of salary increases to accommodate inflation and a number of clients have discussed this with ECM with a view to ensuring they offer competitive packages to ensure good retention.
Meanwhile, economic concerns and cost vs salary pressures have percolated through to companies small and large to a lesser or greater extent, leading to hiring this year being increasingly focused around the most critical roles within a company.
Whilst this may have reduced the overall number of vacancies available within high-tech, particularly for mid-level positions, it has not necessarily diminished the overall investment in new hires from a number of quarters – instead, hiring has been more focused around investing in key senior staff, rather than a broader pool of mid-level staff.
Concurrently, graduate hiring has remained strong in a number of areas, with interesting technical challenges on offer to the most suitable applicants. Many graduates have already secured positions following recent graduation, but there remain interesting opportunities for Q3, Q4 and 2024 for those still looking.
A number of client companies are making plans for more intensive hiring in latter Q3 and Q4, once the summer is behind us, leading to a good number of positions which are anticipated over the coming weeks and months.
Given these factors, this remains a good time both for senior specialists and up-and-coming graduate and junior staff to seek a new position most suited to their goals, and ECM would be pleased to assist in securing that ideal opportunity. For mid-career scientists and engineers looking to find suitable positions in a more challenging environment, we (naturally) recommend contacting the experts to discuss, and to find the best opportunities – get in touch with ECM.
