One of the surprises since we launched HotViews in 2009 is how few comments are posted to the public section of the website. Conversely, we get a large number of emails – most of which start ‘not for publication’, ‘in confidence’ or‘these are my personal views, not those of my company’. I guess we should have known that HotViews top level, CXO-type readers would shy away from publicity.
Let me share with you come of the many comments on articles since the New Year.
IT Salaries - The FT of 31st Dec 12 declared that ‘Salaries across the UK technology sector rose as much as a quarter during 2012, as rocketing demand for skilled web designers and app developers stoked wage increases.’ Our post IT salary ‘jump’ more of a ‘skip’ obviously reflected the views of our readers. Albert Ellis CEO of Harvey Nash (and they should know!) agreed that the FT article was “very misleading”. (Note – Albert gave permission for us to use his name)
“There will be small pockets where very Niche Technology skills will create a market where wage inflation will be unusually high. These “niche areas” will always be in new software engineering languages or in markets such as social media (e-commerce & marketing) related activities, tablets/smartphones etc. Geographic discrepancies are also at play here so one will see spikes in central London which will not be reflected in the more depressed North East by way of example.
Overall we have seen minimal wage inflation in the technology sector particularly in “services” positions (as opposed to key engineering roles).
However, having said that, this could change if the current optimism over the global economy attracts talent away from the UK/Europe to the USA and East Asian markets. One of the reasons this may happen in America is the clampdown by the Obama Administration on Asian immigration (through capping H1B Visas) which has traditionally filled the growth in demand for software engineers. There is a real shortage of engineers on the West Coast right now and a good year of USA GDP growth will make this worse. The easy hunting ground becomes the UK as many of the Tech firms can simply transfer their staff (as we do) within 6 weeks under the same corporation employment schemes. The East is also becoming more attractive now as Singapore and HK are recruiting as well. But will this drive up salaries this year in the UK though? I doubt it. It may just lead to more outsourcing and offshoring..
Here in the UK the rise in demand for permanent tech jobs continues over the final quarter as it has over the last six months. So I suppose the silver lining to the gloom we have been treated to by the media over the festive season is that Tech remains a positive bubble of employment. But I would not expect this to translate into the inflation busting rises expressed in the FT report.”
Jessops– My post Should we cry over Jessops? created a huge response. Most were supportive of our view that we shouldn’t artificially support business models that were broken. Suggestions such as ‘crowd-sourcing’ were put forward as a solution. But there was strong support for ‘The High Street’ too. This comment was typical. “I think it is sad. There is an ever increasing older generation who, like my mother, find it very hard to embrace technology, not to mention failing eyesight, but can still have digital cameras which they can take to Jessops, where the staff are patient and kindly help them. They need to interact with people, have a reason to dress smart and go out. There is a huge market out there for "oldies.” As I would now class as an ‘oldie’ to some, I guess I better ‘take note’!
Windows 8– The response to our post End of the PC Era? would make worrying reading to Micr
osoft. One pretty influential reader wrote “I paid £700 for a Win 8 laptop and I hardly use it because the user experience is so annoying. I'm furious! Microsoft is finished as far as I'm concerned. How on earth could they get something as basic as the UI so terribly wrong? If corporations can't hack Win 8 to make it work properly, they're mad to deploy it beyond the tablet/mobile”.
Another wrote “My son will start secondary school in September we decided that he needs his own laptop for research/homework (he keeps borrowing mine!). As he also watches catch-up programmes we thought that we would buy it early and give it him as part of his Christmas present. So a snazzy blue, metallic Lenovo was duly delivered by Santa. Since the 25th December the angst and frustration in this household concerning Windows 8 is unsurpassed. All of us have navigating difficulties and it’s the most unintuitive operating system EVER.”
IT Fund? - Finally, my post Holway’s Share Portfolio produced several requests to invest in a Holway Fund. I think you know the answer to that one!
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