Client Server Tech Market Report 2023

Driven by technology powered by people

We find exceptional individuals for exceptional organisations within the bustling tech industry. From start-ups to Blue Chips, we find them people who are changing the way we do business.

We regularly work with candidates and clients from all over the world, and have a detailed understanding of the tech market, salaries and range of opportunities available.

Our tech market report dives into the dynamic and competitive realm of talent acquisition within the technology sector, shedding light on emerging trends, challenges and salaries across various roles.

For more information about available roles or how we can grow your tech team, visit our website: www.client-server.com

*Data sourced from Client Server placement and database figures.

How is the 2023 tech job market shaping up against 2022?

Late 2022 and early 2023 have certainly been a rollercoaster for many. The ever-evolving workplace, inflation, cost of living crisis, layoffs, and talks of recession has been causing concerns to both business owners and candidates alike.

But we are now well settled into 2023, and with the end of the first two quarters, what has the state of play been like and what can we expect moving forwards?

It seemed that with each week, there were new announcements about global downsizing and the dire state of the economy, coupled with the extremely well-publicised Big Tech layoffs caused many companies of all sizes to reassess if they needed to hire more staff. This resulted in a type of “wait and see attitude” by many employers and reluctance by candidates to move roles.

But despite these layoffs and the many adverse economic facts, the demand for IT staff in 2023 will remain robust.

We saw boom conditions in 2022 with an almost unrelenting demand for technology talent as businesses pursued their digital transformation agendas. This was essentially a continuation of a trend seen since the pandemic kicked in.

Technology has been the lead sector in terms of job creation and looks set to remain at the forefront of driving employment in 2023. Technology has become a core strategic enabler for businesses in the digital era and pulling the plug on critical technology-led transformation projects simply isn’t an option. It’s the key to generating competitive advantage, driving operating efficiencies, boosting productivity, and ultimately lowering costs.

We have started to see a shift in power during the hiring process. It hasn’t been a big one but there is a feeling employers have the upper hand over candidates when it comes to salary demands and negotiations. The net effect of many businesses’ downsizing or restructuring is that supply has slowly caught up with the massive demand for IT talent since the pandemic. Employers have had to tighten their purse strings; budgets have had to be evaluated and “critical” hires have needed to be reassessed, every penny must be accounted for, so salary demands from candidates have been under the microscope.

Despite the slight decline in hiring needs, we are still seeing many job vacancies and opportunities across all sectors. The quantity has just softened.

How is the 2023 tech job market shaping up against 2022?

There remains a huge demand for professionals with expertise in cloud computing, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence. These fields have been identified over the last 18-24 months as critical areas for organisations looking to stay competitive and innovate in a rapidly evolving technology landscape.

The exact shape of the technology talent and recruitment market in 2023 is still emerging, however, we expect that the demand for contractors will increase as project deadlines loom near, and permanent hiring has been temporarily put on hold. But if you want to stay ahead of the competition, you won’t be able to hold off hiring for long.

No doubt it will continue to be an active landscape, driven by ongoing demand for talent, albeit with some shifts in emphasis and a degree of strategic rebasing, and the companies with the strongest preferred supplier relationships will be the most successful ones.

Nick Boulton CEO

Salary Survey

“It

Heavily inflated salaries across the board are starting to fall more in line to what they were pre-Covid. There is an abundance of senior candidates in the market, having been made redundant from “Big Tech” firms.” The market is slower than it has been, however is showing signs of picking up.

William Brock

Team

Lead

| Open Source

“We have seen a slight increase in salaries across all levels of candidates, the highest being with senior positions. Mid-level candidates have seen the smallest increase but demand for their skills remains high, however, there appear to be plenty of candidates on the market at this level.”

Matt Challis Team Lead | Product, PM & BA

looks as though a correction has started to take place.

“We have seen the market slowly start to level out on the salary front with fewer candidates jumping up in and receiving huge increases in salary as we did just after lockdown. The market isn’t as buoyant as in previous months however there is still a consistent demand for strong senior C# and Java engineers and the quality/level of candidates for this market still seems to be smaller than the rest and companies offering strong counter offers to hold onto the talent.”

David Loubser Team Lead | CSR Full Stack

Non-Development

“2022 was the perfect storm in the DevOps and SRE market. A sharp rise in vacancies and a limited candidate pool led to clients rapidly hiring from a variety of backgrounds and levels of seniority, often paying significantly above market rate to secure talent. Fast forward to 2023 and belts have tightened, salaries remain almost unchanged and expectations have gone up. Clients are more selective about who they hire and a lot of candidates are unexpectedly finding themselves on the market, potentially priced out of the majority of roles.”

Mike Gilmour

Team Lead | CSR Ops & SIT

All European roles

The European job market has been less impacted by the economic slowdown and remains buoyant in increasingly challenging times elsewhere in the world. We’ve seen several of our Tier 1 Clients ramp up their hiring in Europe and have a greater interest in setting up satellite offices in European locations. Countries in Eastern Europe such as Poland, Hungary, and Romania have seen unprecedented levels of inflation since Covid but that seems to have reached its peak and hopefully, things will start to level out. However, it means that companies must be flexible when it comes to budgets in these locations as things are moving very quickly.

As we make our way out of the economic slowdown the rest of 2023 looks bright and there is no better time to think about increasing your ability to hire in Europe and tap into this evergrowing employment market.”

Nick Heath Europe Team Lead

Australia. Salary Survey & Singapore

“It’s been an interesting 2023 for the Australian IT & Technology job market so far. Unfortunately, most days we are seeing companies making a significant number of redundancies, which is increasing the candidate pool. There are also fewer vacancies than we have typically seen in recent years, and hiring managers seem to be taking longer to make decisions – perhaps buoyed by the increased number of available candidates and internal pressure to cut costs whilst also delivering and achieving growth – a tough ask in anyone’s book!

However, some of our clients are still hiring for growth, and plan to do so throughout the year. They are still typically offering hybrid working but fully remote roles are less available. There seems to be much more emphasis on the technical acumen of candidates, particularly relative to their salary expectations, so current job-seekers need to hone their technical knowledge before interviews and tests and be reasonable in their salary demands.

David Leadbitter Managing Director

We’ve all seen that AI-generated picture of the salmon in the river. The one with the fillet floating downstream regularly used as a depiction of AI’s shortcomings, the kind of gotcha moment for anyone who says computers are taking over. Now I don’t think AI is going to steal all our jobs, but the topic of AI’s usage in recruitment is an interesting one.

Automating manual tasks, covering admin, and even writing content, there’s clear value when it comes to making us all more efficient.

I was listening to ‘How I Built This’, with Guy Raz. In the episode, he was speaking to Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, whose technology has built – among other things – the much-lauded ChatGPT technology. Something that struck me was Sam’s views, particularly around the influence AI technology can have on everyday people. He described it as akin to your personal AI assistant. “You’ll chat back and forth with this like super intelligent assistant that’ll help you with everything”. It could draft and send replies to all your unread emails. Even make your coffee in the morning, although Altman interjects, “but it doesn’t say hi to you or … smile at you… (to) give you that minute of human connection.”

Does anyone else see the irony there? We want AI to be our shoulder-based angel and devil, but we might miss the smile from an unknown Pret barista. Feels to me like he’s looking to AI to replace human connection, not supplement it.

Market Trend

Is AI going to steal our jobs?

And that brings me to the world of recruitment. The number of emails I get about AI recruitment tools is inordinate, they all go straight in the bin. The only one I have ever responded to was from a guy at SourceWhale, and that was because he quoted something I had written back to me. I enjoyed the personal touch.

Ironically, I think the world of technology recruitment is currently pretty AI-proof. Especially when it comes to interviewing. The ability to connect with someone, understand what they have achieved, how they did it, and get a feel for why they used the method they did, can only be done from human to human.

I don’t think the ability to understand what someone has done, and the technical complexity attached to it can be ascertained by a computer. I also don’t see how it can grasp a company’s culture, and values, and why the person would slot in.

All I can find are tools that – while useful – focus on using what I would call parameters to create value.

We see more and more competition in the recruitment world, but less and less who seem to focus on spending quality time with people. They instead offer a shiny new tool – from video clips to AI-powered candidate outreach – in the hope all of that will encourage clients to work with them. And the sad thing is, it often does. But when all is said and done, those tough technology roles are still not filled.

Not using AI at all is also not smart, I just wish there was less of a rush to assume it’ll solve all recruitment challenges.

To be fair to Sam (as if he needs my blessing), the use of AI in healthcare, or the arts, or indeed to facilitate communication, is unbelievable, I just hope he leaves my world alone for a little longer. And if you’re hiring technologists, then I think you should too.

Nicholas Caley Sales Director

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Diversity in the workplace has become an increasingly important issue in recent years, and for good reason. The benefits of having a diverse workplace are numerous and undeniable. Not only does it lead to a more inclusive and tolerant work environment, but it can also bring a range of unique perspectives, ideas, and experiences to the table, ultimately leading to better business outcomes.

16% of our placements in 2023 so far are female

Diversity & Inclusion is something we are passionate about and want to improve this figure year on year. We work with a number of different stakeholders to promote initiatives to improve the number of diverse people working in the tech sector.

13% of our placements in 2022 were females

48% of these were placements into software development roles (mostly Java & C#)

52% of these were placements into non development roles (mostly BA/PM)

Since we were founded, our clients are unanimous: Diverse and inclusive teams are most proficient when it comes to building software.

Methods we encourage our clients use to improve DEI:

01. Diverse interviewing panels

02. Female imagery on websites

03. Remote working

04. Enhanced maternity

05. Returnships

06. Hiring females into leadership

Let’s start the conversation. Talk to us today about how we can help you build a diverse and inclusive tech team.

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