In its second annual UK Tech Town Index, CompTIA ranked the top 10 places for IT pros to live and work in the UK with Leeds, Birmingham and Belfast topping the list – and remote working starting to become a major factor in recruitment.
Published late last year, CompTIA’s second annual UK Tech Town Index looked at the landscape of employment opportunities, liveability factors, and opportunity costs and ranked the top ten cities for IT pros to live and work in 2020.
The UK Tech Town Index 2020
Leeds leading the way
Leeds took the top spot, thanks to its lower cost of living, booming IT jobs scene, and overall affordability. Between September 2019 and August 2020, a total of 11,348 IT jobs were posted in the Leeds area, with programmers, software development pros, IT business analysts and systems designers in high demand.
The cost of living in Leeds is relatively low compared with other cities on the list (it ranked fourth in this regard), with the average house priced at £197,026, compared to the UK average of £239,196. That affordability is combined with a healthy median wage of £41,360, which compares to £51,748 in London, where the average house is nearly 2.5x more, so salaries in Leeds stretch a bit further.
Growth of jobs in Leeds is strong as well. From 2020 to 2021, 2.1% job growth is expected, putting the city in first place for this factor alone
Start-ups boost Belfast
Birmingham claimed the second spot in the 2020 report, up from fourth in 2019, and the sole newcomer to the list, Belfast, made an impressive entry at three. The Northern Irish city has an active start-up scene, a healthy job market and an enviable cost of living. More than 11,000 IT jobs were posted across Belfast last year, and with the average home price was just £135,523 – compared to the London average of £489,159. This and other factors made Belfast number-one for affordability. When you consider that the median annual IT wages here, of £38,278, are 26% greater than the national average across all occupations, the attraction of the city for tech workers is clear.
The remote factor
Over the year, approximately 88,000 IT jobs were posted in the UK using keywords ‘remote’, ‘WFH’, or ‘work from home’. Around 21,000 of those jobs were posted by companies in the travel-to-work area for London, and the rest were fairly evenly distributed across the other major cities on CompTIA’s list. There are also other good locations that don’t appear on the list of course, Nottingham, Glasgow, Sheffield, Liverpool, and Cardiff, for example, were all mentioned as having a healthy number of opportunities, including remote postings.
A force for good
Reflecting on the findings, Nancy Hammervik, executive vice president for industry relations at CompTIA., said: ‘The factors used to compile the index demonstrate that each of these markets have plentiful opportunities and a variety of choices to create a work-life balance, whether you are a current tech professional or someone who is looking for new career opportunities.’
The experiences lived and lessons learned throughout this most challenging year have the UK tech sector and workforce poised to flourish and thrive in 2021 and beyond
Steven Pretlove, managing director, CCS IT Solutions and chair of CompTIA’s UK Business Technology Community, added: ‘The UK technology community has demonstrated its ability to be a force for good, helping individuals and organisations make their way through unimaginable events and unanticipated challenges brought on by the pandemic. The experiences lived and lessons learned throughout this most challenging year have the UK tech sector and workforce poised to flourish and thrive in 2021 and beyond.’
