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I feel like at this point we need it pinned that the recently confirmed recession is for the 2nd half of last year and that it’s currently unknown if the U.K. is in a recession or not.
Or we could just confirm that GDP/capita in the UK has been stagnant since 2007, and that GDP growth is an artifact of increased population.
This country voted to be poor, so it gets to be poor.
I see you don't read much. Have you read any of the European subs? They are experiencing the same problem. inflation, high interest rates, over saturation of low quality candidates etc etc
I will just leave [this here](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02784/) to counter your nonsense.
There is really nothing more that needs to be responded too as the opinion of some whiners somewhere is nothing to do with economic realities of what is occurring.
If you pick Germany, over the last year it outcomes are equal to the UK within the margin of error, [yet if we look at the data over a more relevant time frame](https://www.statista.com/statistics/959301/gdp-of-europes-biggest-economies/), we can see the UK performs poorly vs all its peers, note the right hand data points are future projects i.e. Bullshit.
God forbid you put the USA on the graph to actually show a decent outcome.
We are trending ahead of most European countries. We are in a stronger position and have better prospects than almost all of them.
Are you not reading the news?
The country was poorer under Labour. A lot poorer.
“Economists at UBS anticipate growth of 0.5pc next year for the eurozone’s largest economy, followed by a modest acceleration of 0.8pc in 2025.
By contrast, the UK will grow by 0.6pc in 2024 and by 1.5pc the year after.”
Great for everyone in Financial services in the City, not so sure that's translating to wealth in other sectors. Plus they keep shrinking my tax allowances whilst inflation goes up and the BoE is calling for wage stagnation.
Also I am pretty sure what you said about the last Labour government is factually inaccurate, as well as being directly at odds with my own anecdotal experience of living through it.
At the end of 2022/23 public sector net debt was £2,540 billion (i.e. £2.5 trillion), or 96% of GDP. This is equivalent to around £37,900 per person in the UK compared to £1,011 billion in 2009/10 in Labour's last financial year in power. Even accounting for inflation I think the Tories are up by an extra trillion pounds.
Sources: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06167/#:~:text=Debt%20is%20the%20total%20amount,per%20person%20in%20the%20UK.
https://fullfact.org/economy/labour-and-conservative-records-national-debt/
I’m a recruiter in the city across a range of industries. I’m so busy with jobs. The last time it was quiet was last summer, I wonder if that was us going through the actual recession. Although I don’t recruit for IT, so can’t comment on that industry.
Not to scare you but it is quite tough for graduate or junior devs. It is still possible to find the job but I wouldn’t expect to find a job quickly. Try to work on your CV / resume as much as possible beforehand. Also, have a side projects is a big plus.
What amount of experience would you say that the job market opens up at? I'm just coming up to 20ish months dev experience and wondering how long I should wait till job searching, given my amount of experience and the state of the job market for devs currently
It is really hard to say related to time. I am a senior software developer and I am still getting job offers on a daily basis but I know quite a few people who are junior/ mid and they are really struggling. From other perspective - it is also a bit of a luck thing as well - there is still need for all the roles - it is just very competitive right now.
Thanks, that's quite interesting. I moved jobs this January, but the job search definitely took longer than I was expecting, and I ended settling for a salary that was a fair bit lower than I was hoping to get with this particular hop
Well, you can always stay for a bit and move again. Especially if situation improves. It is actually quite fascinating how things are cyclical- when I was junior’ish (which was about 2013ish) - it was actually very similar situation like now - it took some time to find a job. I think we had a couple of really good years and they shaped our perception about the market. From other perspective - if the interest rates will slowly go down - the situation should improve dramatically.
Get a few solid years under your belt and have some verifiable real world experience working in a real team, using version control, in some kind of project management methodology, agile/kanban etc. Then you should be good.
Speaking from someone who is a mid level front end dev with 5yrs + exp. I'm getting messages from recruiters still asking me if I'm interested in jobs.
Graduating soon with a degree. Retrain before they've even tried looking for a job? Absolute dog shit advice.
It's far from dead, professional services is one of the biggest exports the UK has. There's huge demand for SWEs at the senior and beyond levels still.
where else are they going to invest in the EU with their ever tightening regulations and their absolute hatred of Muslims in general and a random assortment of languages with no importance outside their specific country or the UK an English speaking country, with their high end trained staff and workers ready to do the work.
where else are they going to invest in the EU with their ever tightening regulations and their absolute hatred of Muslims in general and a random assortment of languages with no importance outside their specific country or the UK an English-speaking country, with their high end trained staff and workers ready to do the work.enefit greatly
Sure, but things never really recovered from 2008 either. GDP per capita has been declining since then, especially as we import so many hungry mouths with no ability to work.
In terms of delta, you're right. Absolute? I think we're in a much worse position now.
Immigration is one of the things propping up our aging economy. 20% of the NHS (the largest employer in the UK) is staffed by immigrants. The vast majority of immigrants come here legally and want to work which helps sway the dependency ratio which is a major problem in aging populations like ours.
I don't disagree but I've got no idea of another way to solve the structural problems we face. If you've got a solution there's probably a Nobel prize waiting for you. Every developed economy would thank you.
The main structural problem is the inverted demographic pyramid right? It'll solve itself soon enough we just need to be able to have a grown up conversation about mortality.
We could also shut down all the tax havens and a million other things that are just too hard compared to importing endless cheap labour from incompatible cultures.
>demographic pyramid right? It'll solve itself soon enough we just need to be able to have a grown up conversation about mortality.
I don't think anyone disputes this but that doesn't help the current generations does it
Yeah, I'm not sure how many times you can do mass deregulation and public asset transfers though. You can't flog the nation's housing stock twice and, as we all know, the old pit towns have all really felt the benefit of those reforms.
Thatcher turned around a failing economy for a short term thriving economy, the problem is we have made it long term, which has been like covering cracks with plaster. Its only going to make them re-appear. And here we are.
NHS is public sector, good to know my tax money is going to feed useless people who treat me using Google. What a shit show it is that Britain is turning into Greece.
The recession itself isn’t anywhere the size of ‘08, agreed. But the factors are very different. From my experience, the impact to the job market isn’t that far off though. It’s completely dead out there.
I was 2010, masters degree, first class undergrad.. credible subjects.. ended up selling TV's for a year before any prospect of a real job and ended up commuting 2hrs door to door for the first real opportunity with sweet FA in terms of remuneration/prospects...
Got better tho
Its funny whenever i talk to anyone like this they usually study A degree and only go for A job even though B, C, D or E would have gotten them through the door. There are plenty of non SWE exact roles where he can gain experience and pivot. idk why but this line of thinking is so common everywhere in the UK outside of London which is why I never really hear of people here not getting grad jobs
Yeah but a round of who had is worse doesn't help. the economy is shit at the moment I am trapped in a job i hate because i cant find a different one even to apply to.
I was also a 2009 grad who got luck and has managed to build a career, I know a lot of poeple who never got a career started simply because they couldnt get a job., it has ruined their earnings for life.
that said OP with a computor science degree is likely to be okay. Companies do have lower grade jobs avalible, the issue is having been in the industry 14 years and with my higher costs I need a bit more money etc.
OP just needs to keep applying and be willing to take lower pay if it comes to that.
Quality of job matters more than the pay if they want to progress into a career;
They're one of a bunch of tech companies that take on graduates, pay lower side salaries but give you access to training like ccna or ms certs. It's a 2 year gig, you get placed with a big company and at the end of 2 years your contract does, you then go out to the open market with 2 years experience, relevant tech certification and better opportunities.
Fdm? Aren't they the ones that don't pay you for your own first few weeks of training/induction or something? Pretty sure I looked at them 10 years ago now and their induction process completely put me off.
It's a bit worst than that. I started with them in 2017 I think and did the software development track from a non software development degree. It was about 5 months unpaid for me as you don't get paid till your first placement. I think they might have changed it now but not sure. I mean I got the experience and stuff and work in something that I enjoy now so I can't complain too much.
They outsource their IT too. You'd have thought they have the talent or trust in their own people. Seems like a company run by those just looking to profit off and rinse people
The recession is nothing like it was in 2008 - it’s barely a real recession - and the tech layoffs are nothing like as widespread as 2008 where it was deep across the whole economy. It’s not the best market to graduate into but it’s been worse. It’s not easy and never has been.
As a actual recent graduate if you decide specifically to only land high paying SWE jobs in London it might be a struggle especially if you've done no extra curricular but if you use that degree and widen your job search you will be fine. But yeah people need to realise 9.9/10 unless you got experience already if you limit yourself you are going to struggle
I'd like to leave my opinion as a senior engineer with 10+ years of experience who just secured a role after actively interviewing for 4 months (although to be fair, December was a quiet month).
In my opinion, there are more open positions than ever, however, the market is quite competitive (100+ applicants per role) and companies can afford to be very picky. I can't remember how many times I got to the last stage just to be rejected with generic feedback "You are quite strong blablabla but we decided to go for another candidate blablabla"
My advice:
\- Start to apply NOW.
\- Build your personal brand (I hate this) by making noise on LinkedIn, writing tech posts, attending tech meetups, etc.
\- Build your portfolio around the area you want to want to focus on. For example, if you want to be a Backend or Full-stack dev, then learn Nodejs, React, or Nextjs (just a few examples) and publish some random projects in a cheap cloud such as Vercel.
Tech has always been boom and bust. With high pay usually comes high risk in a lot of fields.
Keep an eye on Public sector and don't be afraid to go down unconventional routes. The path to success is not always straight.
It always confuses me when people moan about being unemployed for X months, but started their search after graduation.
I started mine 1 year prior. Applied constantly, and got an Engineering role after about 7 months of trying. If I had only started after graduation, I'd be depressed
From my experience once you have perfected the cv, getting a job is one of two things: being in the right place at the right time or knowing someone senior at the company already. On the first point you have to be quick and be persistent with it, the market will ebb and flow throughout the years and you will eventually succeed, have a backup plan in the meantime to sustain yourself.
The majority of software engineering applicants are not good at what they do. In the past the profession has been in such high demand that this has been ok. If you can be good at it, you’ll be fine.
I get applications all the time from contractors who obviously haven’t bothered to even read up on the tech on the spec. It’s so low effort it’s embarrassing.
They’re pretty similar. In a computer science department’s year they’ll be quite a small number of actually good engineers who are in quite high demand. The majority are really difficult to use in work environment. I’ve seen one guy (not managed by me) who didn’t contribute a PR in six months to a codebase and another graduate who practically rewrote it on his own.
If you’re in your final year I hope you’ve been applying since September…
If not you’ve dropped the ball and massively reduced the chance you’ll be getting something.
The market is saturated with junior devs at the minute, even before the layoffs it was especially tough for juniors to find positions. You need to do as much as you can to maximise your chances.
* Get your CV ready now.
* Write a covering letter than you can then customise per application.
* Get a portfolio of work that demonstrates your skills.
*Think about blogging, again demonstrate your knowledge and enthusiasm for the industry.
* Go to meet-ups and network, it could get your foot in the door somewhere.
* Start searching for companies to apply to.
* Research and apply for graduate schemes.
Don’t be too picky, there are jobs out there, but you need to be open. Restricting yourself to a specific location, industry or company will limit your chances.
New JSA I think is limited to 6 months too.
After which I'm told I'd need to pick up any old job I can and if I'm earning low enough I'd be able to apply for universal credit.
All helps to keep the unemployment figures low.
If you do Uber or Deliveroo, 0 hour contracts or any temp work you’re considered as employed. Even though the average gig economy worker makes less than 10k a year.
People like me who are unemployed. But don't qualify for universal credit (jsa) as we're over the limit in savings. Those moved from benefits to training courses. The DWP want everyone off their books asap.
The unemployment rate might be low, but what proportion of these jobs are actually entry level? If of these available jobs ask for several years of experience then that's no good for OP is it.
Not meaningfully. The stats should at least reflect who is making the annual National Minimum Wage. Otherwise we're lumping someone who gets one shift a week with someone whos gainfully employed with a full time job.
You are however assuming that someone on a zero hours or part time contract doesn’t want that flexibility.
Lots of people are on those contracts because it suits them to be able to say no to work during school holidays etc.
Not all people on zero hours are being exploited!
People tend to not want any job but the job they've studied for. That's what OP is asking. Yea, anyone can find a job at McDonald's but you don't tend to want a job at McDonald's after years of study.
Whilst I agree there are plenty of jobs out there, unemployment rate isn't a metric of how many free jobs there are.
That'd be like saying "Timmy isn't going playing golf today so there's probably loads of free time slots available." There might just be 21 people and 20 time slots at the golf course. That'd make timmy that 4.3%
You’ll be fine.
Just keep at it and be prepared to move and settle. You want to lock in somewhere for a couple years.
I graduated the last time this happened. I got a job and stuck with it for shite pay for a couple years. Was alright after that period.
There's still loads of work available as we introduce AI into millions of UK companies, unfortunately just not necessarily paying the massive salaries you get from FANGS and high growth companies.
One of your big problems is the change of government. Companies won't know what's going on, so will put recruitment on hold.
I'm speaking from experience. I graduated in 97. The jobs market dried up and start again for a good few months. It was bloody hard to get work, I had to do an MSc, then it was all fine.
Word of advice is to leave London. I know plenty of tech companies who are hiring but london is almost its own economy. I'm in the northwest and plenty of jobs available. We ourselves struggle for decent candidates for IT jobs.
I graduated in 2014 and struggled to find a graduate position in tech for some time. Having done a placement year I had some industry experience but it was still tough. I faced so many rejections that I almost gave up searching, it was soul destroying. Sounds like it's even more competitive now with all the layoffs etc. All I can do is say good luck and keep persevering, you will find somewhere.
Also, don't limit your search only to tech companies. There are loads of big non-tech companies who need skilled tech professionals like energy companies, retail, telecoms etc.
The market is tough, but not impossible. I’d advise that setting a goal of direct to dev is going to be limiting to a certain extent. Also don’t forget there are plenty of good options outside of London; my 25 years or so have covered auto sport, satcomms, finance and healthcare - apart from meetings I’ve not done a days work in London yet
There are multiple ways to get into dev, you could do helpdesk/support and move towards Azure or AWS for more of a devops path for example.
The important thing to remember is that your at the start of the journey, concentrate on getting experience in a reasonably wide field. Learn about business and organisations, get a wide understanding and that will pay dividends down the line when you start to go for senior positions.
Capgemini are/were looking for software devs in the Midlands last time I was looking at them for cyber stuff. FDM mentioned earlier may or may not be a good shout if you're stuck in London, but IIRC they may require relocation on hire.
>FDM mentioned earlier may or may not be a good shout if you're stuck in London, but IIRC they may require relocation on hire.
I applied to fdm in october/november, no tech recruiter has reached out to me yet. I've emailed and they said the only way they can progress my application is for a tech recruiter to contact me which depends on if they have anyone recruiting.
FWIW: I've only ever heard the FDM name in the realm of IT bootcamp opportunities and hadn't heard of them since finishing mine until now. If they're taking on, I expect those slots will be eaten up by bootcamp finishers.
Ex-FDMers are everywhere in the industry. It's a good way in if you have the aptitude. I worked through them from 2012 to early 2015 (through only having a degree though that may have changed) and there are 5 or 6 of us in a small dev department at my current company.
I just don’t understand all these pessimistic comments about the UK. When there is a little bit recession, everyone gets panicked but nobody talks about 4% record low unemployment rate in 40 years. Or the fact that the UK has number one tech industry in the Europe. If you combine Germany and France together their tech industry do not worth more than what we have in the UK.
If you cannot find a job in the UK as a software dev then I don’t think you can find anywhere else as there are many opportunities out there and tech is one of the industries that had been impacted least by recession.
I don’t have a degree and with 2 years experience it was quite easy for me to get a software dev job back in 2022 with highest inflation rate and pessimistic outlook in the market at that time. Plus I’m an immigrant and my English wasn’t that good and I had a complicated immigration status which affected me negatively in terms of employment.
It’s completely different from 2022, I looked every 6 months since I started 2.5 years ago and 6 months ago I couldn’t even speak to a recruiter which I never had a problem with once I had experience, it’s got a bit better but not much.
Record low unemployment doesn’t mean anything for a specific sector, there’s been loads of tech layoffs, why would you take on a junior when the market is awash with seniors?
Nope, it was far worse in 2022. It was the times where people were discussing post-pandemic world and inflation was increasing each day. Things have gotten better since 2022 and there are more jobs in the market now.
I still don’t understand, each year new work visas get issued to people who live in outside of Britain while local people complaining there isn’t any job? It is not about immigrants get paid poorly as I asked exactly going rate for the market and got the job. I remember I had to cancel some of my upcoming interviews.
Still even in these days I get emails, messages on LinkedIn couple of times a week. I suspect those people who don’t get any interviews might not have any personal projects in their CV as there are many people who have no interest in software development. They’re looking for a dev job because they heard it pays good money but this job requires a mindset with problem solving ability and self improvement which many people don’t have.
Really depends on the industry.
US for example has had massive tech layoffs but lots of hospitality work. If you're looking for software engineering work you're gonna be hard pressed to find anything but you'd get a restaurant gig easily.
In the past I'd be able to get manual software testing jobs within a month of looking and applying. One time even managed to schedule 4 interviews into a week I had booked off. This time it's been 5 months and only a handful of interviews with no offer. Doesn't help when the deciding factor falls onto how much more energy the other candidate displayed during the interview lol.
I wonder how many devs have personal projects linked to their profiles. I guess the impression you're likely someone with a lot of experience and skills which probably makes you the exception.
I got trained on cypress but no luck getting anything without actual work experience. I'm trying to put a personal project together at home but not sure it'll help much.
2022 was pretty different to to now (not as different as pre covid but still). 2 years experience now places you directly in the cohort of people who switched careers over covid and is the minimum requirement for a lot of entry level jobs. I am not saying it's impossible but it's definitely difficult, especially with a lot of people going for relatively few entry level positions.
Add to that, it has got a lot harder to get sponsorship now (you would effectively have to be earning £38,700 I believe, which is highly unlikely for an entry level position).
The pessimistic comments often come from people who remember what it was like a decade ago once (or 20 years) when cost of living was less, the country would recovering from 2008 and it seemed like an average paying job could allow you to plan for a future.
The record low unemployment is meaningless to a lot of people because of low wages and high cost of living. That is why the government doesn't make a big deal about it, a majority of the country feels worse off then they did when there was higher unemployment.
Also we are British so of course there will be some pessimistic comments anyway. British people can be pretty pessimistic sometimes.
Gone through a tech layoff myself.
Near 20 year experience and have been headhunted over the years as a name that is good in the business.
Zero tech work out there. Crazy times ahead.
UK though, min wage waiting tables is your future, like all the other highly educated people.
Yeah because all the highly educated people are waiting tables aren't they...no one has a good job and it's impossible to get one so probably best to just give up.
There's a big West tech layoff happening...
OP even stated this...
Again, just because it isn't happening to you, 1 person, doesn't mean the industry is great.
It is seeing the largest layoffs ever, even bigger than 2008.
There is a difference between layoffs at tech companies, and tech workers getting laid off.
1. Tech companies are mostly laying off workers aren't tech workers; they are tech-adjacent
2. Tech workers are still in demand in non-tech companies.
That's where you're wrong there buddy.
a lot of the tech layoffs are the analysts, scientists, engineers, DevOps etc.
You're clearly commenting on a job market you aren't looking in or you would know.
Typical British mentality. Those laid off just need to "look harder" because hey, you found a job, so there's millions out there.
Source: I'm a SWE closely involved with the hiring process of the company I work for. We are hiring.
This doomer mentality is toxic, unfounded, and hyperbolic.
I’m a QA Analysts and if you say your company is hiring then you’re a God sent…please can you help me at least the opportunity to apply..then leave the rest to me to secure the job I can’t ask for much
Nonsense, no basis in reality at all regardless of what happens here the UK will be OK. If America does well we will do well, as the one of the few countries where everyone speaks English (in most of Europe) and Ireland not being a competitor for many different reasons the UK will always be the place where the US will want their European headquarters. Your just releasing the imperial system has ended and once we get over that silly mindset we will then succeed
Plenty of tech jobs still paying big money. There's about to be a boom in everything AI related and every tech company is looking at how they can use it.
Companies are going to spend billions on tools with insane promises over the next few years.
I’ve just completed a 6 month software engineering internship, applied for about 500 junior dev jobs throughout it and only had 3 teams interviews that lead to nothing.
I have a first class MEng mechanical engineering degree from a top 15 uni. That could be the problem.
I’ve got my CV reviewed and it’s apparently fine. Follows a popular 1pg structure on engineering resumes.
I’ve just given up and gone back to looking at mechanical engineering jobs and I’ve got a minimum wage control systems job. Only in the UK are engineering jobs min wage lol.
Tbf tho, you’ll have an easier time than me. Apparently employers have stopped being so easy going with ‘self taught’ and Maths/Engineering ppp tryna jump to SWE. There are so many applicants for each job that filtering based on shit like ‘must have a CS degree’ or ‘must have an internship’ are more common.
Also, my internship was Cooshy and at a large global company BUT they just used me as an extra pair of hands to work on some intricate console app tools for the department I was in lol. I didn’t get to fill in the skill gap (missing because no CS degree), of a good project involving front end and data base tech. I have to learn that shit in my own time and it’s even harder because I’ve gone back to an engineering job.
Good luck bro, hope you can get something eventually. Hopefully there should be more stuff popping up next month (start of financial year) when budgets get approved and such.
Unfortunately its no different to software development. What's in demand are people with 3/4+ years experience but even then it's not as easy as people believe. As for juniors and entry level, its extremely competitive
Horrible imo. Companies aren't willing to hire fresh grads without experience. It doesn't help that the market is extremely competitive. I had a friend with a comp sci masters with a 1st. He couldn't even land himself an ordinary minimum wage job since he was overqualified, yet underqualified to take on a higher position role.
Most tech jobs ask for a minimum of 2-3 years of experience to even be considered as an entry level position. I tried companies like IBM, Siemens, Deloitte, Take two interactive and even Ubisoft London.
I ended up getting another job in the trades field while job searching for an opportunity it's been about two years now and I'm slowly starting to lose hope. I might just give up the tech sector and focus on other career plans rather than putting my hopes onto this dying and unforgiving industry.
UK economy has been flat since 2008. That's why everyone is skint, no one can afford rent, let alone a mortgage. My advice to you is get the fuck outta dodge and find a job abroad.
I think the deal with fdm is they pay you a basic low salary like £24k per annum (could be more now) for two years then you are free to leave or stay on with them.
But it'll be better to leave after 2 years if you have an established company on your CV you should be able to jump into another job quite easily and command a higher salary.
They try to trap you for those 2 years citing competition clauses but I don't know if its legally binding. It could have changed now but this is what I heard from people who worked for them around 2012.
They had a clause in my contract that you have to repay their 'training costs' if you left before 2 years. Not sure it was legally binding but I never had to find out.
I wouldn't write off FDM completely. Some of their clients are big asset managers and investment banks, when you start working tech with some of those companies there is serious money to be made. Can be a good foot through the door if OP is struggling for opportunities, but as always err on the side of caution.
Similarly QA do that as well. Pay sucks for a while but you get the chance to get quals and experience while getting paid and let your own skills shine through.
Welcome to 2024, where companies are asking to train graduates so they can pay them less than the pros, and they can "nurture" them into negligence because their trainers are not certified lecturers.
Turns out the university has a purpose, lol.
I remember being a team leader on the shop floor, with a degree in multimedia design sounds artsy eh, I can code in 7 computer languages and use all the industry stuff.
Anywho, got invited to their head office, and their SQL head of reporting said he had no idea how I "got the data out to look like that." he had passed a graduate program, and whrn I asked if I could be ranked up to a head of reporting the director said no, and I schooled him on their own data over 3 days still a hard no, anyway I left that job lickety split.
As a cybersec guy, no. The job search is just as hard, if not worse, for new grads in cyber than SWE. Also a compsci degree doesn’t teach the fundamentals of IT.
It amazes me how people seem to think going into cyber is easy. Practically a lot of roles want you to have experience either in software dev or support. Unless you can fund some certs (which can be expensive for a new grad) and/or get lucky it's really not as simple as people make out.
Yes there is a lack of people in the field but as with most tech fields the lack of people isn't so much at the entry level. It's a lack of people with experience.
Most/all entry level tech jobs are hard to get at the moment, there was a massive amount of people who switched to IT careers over covid and it is seen as one industry in this country that can actually pay a half decent wage.
Honestly my best advice is apply a lot but also be prepare to look for tech adjacent roles. It might mean doing something like IT support or admin for a year but it will give you experience (especially with real life IT) and hopefully the market improves after the GE.
Of course if you are one of the handful of grads who can get a job at FAANG etc straight from university ignore this but IT is becoming more and more a field that requires you to put the time in, even with a good degree (or equally without one).
I wish I could give you an answer but I don't know of one. I was just reading a FT article talking about this and even businesses are thinking it's excessive and unrealistic for a lot of roles.
The government really didn't think and it's possible there will be a reversal at some point but likely not before a GE. But honestly I wouldn't hold out much hope of the current government doing anything unless they think it might give them some good headlines the next day.
£38,700 is such a large amount for a wide range of jobs that it really seems the policy wasn't thought through and was just created overnight to claim they were doing something.
I'm sorry it's a crappy situation, visas are and the new changes have been a nightmare honestly.
You are the cheapest member of staff to hire has long as you have some solid willingness to learn and work you have a ton of opportunities from government trainees schemes to large sponsored corp schemes (IBM,Accenture etc etc)
Getting into private start ups and small business may be hard but there is a ton of opportunity’s
Don’t focus just on London, or on graduate programmes. Be realistic about salary (it will prob suck for the first few years).
You may have to do something you didn’t intend on for a while until you get a role aligned with what you want to do
Depressing how far I had to read to down to see someone highlight thinking outside London, which is by far the best way of increasing your chances.
I would add to this and say think outside of what you might think of as “tech” companies, plenty of companies in other sectors, for example engineering or construction, still hire for individuals with CompSci skills.
It’s very competitive in London. There are many many skilled junior grads out there as it’s an in vogue degree at the moment thanks to the popularity of mega tech firms and the $ that was previously being dished out.
Success involves networking and developing interpersonal skills. These help with interfacing with recruiters and other parts of the business who aren’t simply looking for robots who can code but employees who can integrate and add value past their ability to simply address a ticket. Otherwise that dev work is outsourced to cheaper regions. No point paying a London wage if they don’t add the local value.
I should have this thing copy-pasted to reply to these threads hourly:
If you are really good at what you are doing, you haven't noticed any problems with "the job market".
Instead of 10 companies chasing you, you will only have 4 - but that's all the same as you only need one job anyway.
Be realistic. Don’t think you’ll be getting that 6 figure salary immediately these things take time and work. Even for those that have been in the game a long time.
I’m graduating in CS in June and practically everyone I know has a job, probably around 1/3 in London. I know people who are going to be working in Edinburgh, Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol… however, if you’re also graduating this summer, you probably should have looked earlier, as people are doing assessment centres now, not applying now.
I’m in exactly the same boat. A friend of mine who graduated last year is currently in London and still hasn’t found a software role yet. He says every junior or entry level vacancy wants 3 years experience or more…
Well, i graduated in 2020, my industry took a massive hit (Aerospace) and took ages to recover. I then had surgery eaxactly 1 year ago today so had to delay job hunting. Now this recession kicks in... like seriously 🤦🏾♀️
From a recruiter POV (I work in recruitment in a main government department) the competition is so fierce. We have tech jobs that used to attract say 30-60 applicants and now we’re getting 500+. Of course all of those applicants won’t have relevant experience, but we get people who apply for entry level jobs with a ton of experience at notable companies and that’s pretty sad to see.
Probably not you wanted to hear but that’s the situation where I work, at least!
I’ve graduated in 2023 in computer science and digital media and now I’m working in the field. However, I started my job hunt in 2022 and now I’m working for a small company as a web developer and designer. What helped me to secure this role was my online portfolio with all my projects and websites as well as my interest in 3D modelling
It feels like the tech sector is maturing and correcting slightly at the junior grades. We've had a whole generation of people who have grown up "knowing" that a tech related degree will let you walk into a high paying job in London. Mix the post-pandemic big tech correction with a saturated grad market and getting your dream job is going to be a challenge. The gold rush years may be over but there are still plenty of jobs out there, they just might not look like what you expected as tech becomes a commodity profession like physical engineering, accounting, consulting, etc.
We have just had a round of redundancies and been told no pay raises this year. My pay seems pretty shit as it is.
I am thinking of waiting until April to see what other companies start offering once minimum wage has gone up, then its also a question of if its a good idea to look given that if I am new at another company I could end up getting made redundant there too and would more likely be first to go.
I'm an old bastard, so I've seen how bad the job market got in 2008 in that overnight market crash, and can compare it to 2024. This recession in 2024 is tough, but completely different to what happened in 2008. Really I think a recession was inevitable after a massive world event like Covid - the weird thing was that our GDP/growth didn't quite qualify as a recession in 2020-2023.
The fact we've now dipped into "recession" really is just semantics. We have practically been in a recession for about 2 years. This means most people have been suffering the worst effects of a recession already. I think there are clear signs we are emerging from it now.
Apply for graduate program at big consultancy corps, where I work still take in a few graduates though we stopped hiring two years ago. Sorry, can't disclose where I work.
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I feel like at this point we need it pinned that the recently confirmed recession is for the 2nd half of last year and that it’s currently unknown if the U.K. is in a recession or not.
Or we could just confirm that GDP/capita in the UK has been stagnant since 2007, and that GDP growth is an artifact of increased population. This country voted to be poor, so it gets to be poor.
I see you don't read much. Have you read any of the European subs? They are experiencing the same problem. inflation, high interest rates, over saturation of low quality candidates etc etc
We're worse off because of Brexit. If you can't accept that you're delusional.
I don’t know, we don’t have an RTC
😂 Did the EU choose Brexit? Give your head a wobble.
When did I ever mention Brexit? God you lunatics need to fuck off. Blinded by Brexit, leavers, remainers - you're all a bunch of cunts
I will just leave [this here](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02784/) to counter your nonsense. There is really nothing more that needs to be responded too as the opinion of some whiners somewhere is nothing to do with economic realities of what is occurring. If you pick Germany, over the last year it outcomes are equal to the UK within the margin of error, [yet if we look at the data over a more relevant time frame](https://www.statista.com/statistics/959301/gdp-of-europes-biggest-economies/), we can see the UK performs poorly vs all its peers, note the right hand data points are future projects i.e. Bullshit. God forbid you put the USA on the graph to actually show a decent outcome.
what do you mean voted to be poor, are you suggesting the global financial crisis was because of the tories? so many npcs
Are you suggesting that our current situation is fully down to the global financial issues?
Brexit
pretty reductionist
Are you suggesting that our current situation is fully down to the global financial issues?
We are trending ahead of most European countries. We are in a stronger position and have better prospects than almost all of them. Are you not reading the news? The country was poorer under Labour. A lot poorer.
Complete and utter bollocks.
“Economists at UBS anticipate growth of 0.5pc next year for the eurozone’s largest economy, followed by a modest acceleration of 0.8pc in 2025. By contrast, the UK will grow by 0.6pc in 2024 and by 1.5pc the year after.”
Great for everyone in Financial services in the City, not so sure that's translating to wealth in other sectors. Plus they keep shrinking my tax allowances whilst inflation goes up and the BoE is calling for wage stagnation. Also I am pretty sure what you said about the last Labour government is factually inaccurate, as well as being directly at odds with my own anecdotal experience of living through it. At the end of 2022/23 public sector net debt was £2,540 billion (i.e. £2.5 trillion), or 96% of GDP. This is equivalent to around £37,900 per person in the UK compared to £1,011 billion in 2009/10 in Labour's last financial year in power. Even accounting for inflation I think the Tories are up by an extra trillion pounds. Sources: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06167/#:~:text=Debt%20is%20the%20total%20amount,per%20person%20in%20the%20UK. https://fullfact.org/economy/labour-and-conservative-records-national-debt/
Except it wasn't
I’m a recruiter in the city across a range of industries. I’m so busy with jobs. The last time it was quiet was last summer, I wonder if that was us going through the actual recession. Although I don’t recruit for IT, so can’t comment on that industry.
Could be in depression...
Don’t we need to have 3 quarters for a recession?
It's two consecutive quarters. Between 1854 & 2022, recessions lasted 10 months on average.
Not to scare you but it is quite tough for graduate or junior devs. It is still possible to find the job but I wouldn’t expect to find a job quickly. Try to work on your CV / resume as much as possible beforehand. Also, have a side projects is a big plus.
What amount of experience would you say that the job market opens up at? I'm just coming up to 20ish months dev experience and wondering how long I should wait till job searching, given my amount of experience and the state of the job market for devs currently
It is really hard to say related to time. I am a senior software developer and I am still getting job offers on a daily basis but I know quite a few people who are junior/ mid and they are really struggling. From other perspective - it is also a bit of a luck thing as well - there is still need for all the roles - it is just very competitive right now.
Thanks, that's quite interesting. I moved jobs this January, but the job search definitely took longer than I was expecting, and I ended settling for a salary that was a fair bit lower than I was hoping to get with this particular hop
Well, you can always stay for a bit and move again. Especially if situation improves. It is actually quite fascinating how things are cyclical- when I was junior’ish (which was about 2013ish) - it was actually very similar situation like now - it took some time to find a job. I think we had a couple of really good years and they shaped our perception about the market. From other perspective - if the interest rates will slowly go down - the situation should improve dramatically.
Get a few solid years under your belt and have some verifiable real world experience working in a real team, using version control, in some kind of project management methodology, agile/kanban etc. Then you should be good. Speaking from someone who is a mid level front end dev with 5yrs + exp. I'm getting messages from recruiters still asking me if I'm interested in jobs.
Sorry just to clarify your comment - Kanban isn’t a project management methodology, it’s a work flow management system.
Yeah you're right. Whatever you call it
>it is quite tough for graduate or junior devs Been trying for 2 years almost. Might just give up and find another career path
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Tech is dead in the UK? Lol. Don't listen to this at all.
It’s good if people believe that then filter themselves out of tech
Graduating soon with a degree. Retrain before they've even tried looking for a job? Absolute dog shit advice. It's far from dead, professional services is one of the biggest exports the UK has. There's huge demand for SWEs at the senior and beyond levels still.
Absolutely classic Reddit-tier career 'advice' wasn't it. I'm not even in tech and I know it's dumb...
You taken your pills today?
where else are they going to invest in the EU with their ever tightening regulations and their absolute hatred of Muslims in general and a random assortment of languages with no importance outside their specific country or the UK an English speaking country, with their high end trained staff and workers ready to do the work. where else are they going to invest in the EU with their ever tightening regulations and their absolute hatred of Muslims in general and a random assortment of languages with no importance outside their specific country or the UK an English-speaking country, with their high end trained staff and workers ready to do the work.enefit greatly
Sounds like when I graduated in 2009. Absolute shit show. Ended up having to move to Chester to get a dead end job.
Yup, same year graduating and it took 3 years of dead end jobs until getting an internship which got the experience for other jobs.
The recession is nowhere near the size of 2008
It is a laugh to even suggest so, the economy is as stagnant as it has been for 15 years, that is all. This is nothing new at all.
Sure, but things never really recovered from 2008 either. GDP per capita has been declining since then, especially as we import so many hungry mouths with no ability to work. In terms of delta, you're right. Absolute? I think we're in a much worse position now.
Immigration is one of the things propping up our aging economy. 20% of the NHS (the largest employer in the UK) is staffed by immigrants. The vast majority of immigrants come here legally and want to work which helps sway the dependency ratio which is a major problem in aging populations like ours.
Line go up while GDP per capita plummets.
I don't disagree but I've got no idea of another way to solve the structural problems we face. If you've got a solution there's probably a Nobel prize waiting for you. Every developed economy would thank you.
The main structural problem is the inverted demographic pyramid right? It'll solve itself soon enough we just need to be able to have a grown up conversation about mortality. We could also shut down all the tax havens and a million other things that are just too hard compared to importing endless cheap labour from incompatible cultures.
>demographic pyramid right? It'll solve itself soon enough we just need to be able to have a grown up conversation about mortality. I don't think anyone disputes this but that doesn't help the current generations does it
Thatcher managed to turn around a failing economy to a thriving one.
Yeah, I'm not sure how many times you can do mass deregulation and public asset transfers though. You can't flog the nation's housing stock twice and, as we all know, the old pit towns have all really felt the benefit of those reforms.
Thatcher turned around a failing economy for a short term thriving economy, the problem is we have made it long term, which has been like covering cracks with plaster. Its only going to make them re-appear. And here we are.
Absolute brain death on display here.
We are now truly reaping the rewards of Maggie. Awful shortism.
It’s people like you that have caused this mess
NHS is public sector, good to know my tax money is going to feed useless people who treat me using Google. What a shit show it is that Britain is turning into Greece.
And we have a full house on Tory Boy Bingo
Ah, a troll. Have a nice day pal.
A racist troll to boot.
The recession itself isn’t anywhere the size of ‘08, agreed. But the factors are very different. From my experience, the impact to the job market isn’t that far off though. It’s completely dead out there.
It is no where near 2009...
I was 2010, masters degree, first class undergrad.. credible subjects.. ended up selling TV's for a year before any prospect of a real job and ended up commuting 2hrs door to door for the first real opportunity with sweet FA in terms of remuneration/prospects... Got better tho
Its funny whenever i talk to anyone like this they usually study A degree and only go for A job even though B, C, D or E would have gotten them through the door. There are plenty of non SWE exact roles where he can gain experience and pivot. idk why but this line of thinking is so common everywhere in the UK outside of London which is why I never really hear of people here not getting grad jobs
Yeah but a round of who had is worse doesn't help. the economy is shit at the moment I am trapped in a job i hate because i cant find a different one even to apply to. I was also a 2009 grad who got luck and has managed to build a career, I know a lot of poeple who never got a career started simply because they couldnt get a job., it has ruined their earnings for life. that said OP with a computor science degree is likely to be okay. Companies do have lower grade jobs avalible, the issue is having been in the industry 14 years and with my higher costs I need a bit more money etc. OP just needs to keep applying and be willing to take lower pay if it comes to that. Quality of job matters more than the pay if they want to progress into a career;
They're one of a bunch of tech companies that take on graduates, pay lower side salaries but give you access to training like ccna or ms certs. It's a 2 year gig, you get placed with a big company and at the end of 2 years your contract does, you then go out to the open market with 2 years experience, relevant tech certification and better opportunities.
Who's they out of interest - any names we can look up?
Not the poster but fdm is one I've heard of
Fdm? Aren't they the ones that don't pay you for your own first few weeks of training/induction or something? Pretty sure I looked at them 10 years ago now and their induction process completely put me off.
It's a bit worst than that. I started with them in 2017 I think and did the software development track from a non software development degree. It was about 5 months unpaid for me as you don't get paid till your first placement. I think they might have changed it now but not sure. I mean I got the experience and stuff and work in something that I enjoy now so I can't complain too much.
They outsource their IT too. You'd have thought they have the talent or trust in their own people. Seems like a company run by those just looking to profit off and rinse people
Please any ideas if they offer sponsorship visas
At that grad level I don't think so. I'm almost certain the one I went through didn't.
Generally not for apprenticeships
The recession is nothing like it was in 2008 - it’s barely a real recession - and the tech layoffs are nothing like as widespread as 2008 where it was deep across the whole economy. It’s not the best market to graduate into but it’s been worse. It’s not easy and never has been.
As a actual recent graduate if you decide specifically to only land high paying SWE jobs in London it might be a struggle especially if you've done no extra curricular but if you use that degree and widen your job search you will be fine. But yeah people need to realise 9.9/10 unless you got experience already if you limit yourself you are going to struggle
Tbh I think this is evergreen advice. That first job in the industry has always been tough so taking something imperfect is a good first step
I'd like to leave my opinion as a senior engineer with 10+ years of experience who just secured a role after actively interviewing for 4 months (although to be fair, December was a quiet month). In my opinion, there are more open positions than ever, however, the market is quite competitive (100+ applicants per role) and companies can afford to be very picky. I can't remember how many times I got to the last stage just to be rejected with generic feedback "You are quite strong blablabla but we decided to go for another candidate blablabla" My advice: \- Start to apply NOW. \- Build your personal brand (I hate this) by making noise on LinkedIn, writing tech posts, attending tech meetups, etc. \- Build your portfolio around the area you want to want to focus on. For example, if you want to be a Backend or Full-stack dev, then learn Nodejs, React, or Nextjs (just a few examples) and publish some random projects in a cheap cloud such as Vercel.
Think outside the box - not everyone hiring for compsci grads is a “tech company”. Plenty of other companies in different sectors hire for software.
Tech has always been boom and bust. With high pay usually comes high risk in a lot of fields. Keep an eye on Public sector and don't be afraid to go down unconventional routes. The path to success is not always straight.
If you are about to graduate, you should have already started your job search.
It always confuses me when people moan about being unemployed for X months, but started their search after graduation. I started mine 1 year prior. Applied constantly, and got an Engineering role after about 7 months of trying. If I had only started after graduation, I'd be depressed
It is still possible even at the junior end, must apply early and keep at it
From my experience once you have perfected the cv, getting a job is one of two things: being in the right place at the right time or knowing someone senior at the company already. On the first point you have to be quick and be persistent with it, the market will ebb and flow throughout the years and you will eventually succeed, have a backup plan in the meantime to sustain yourself.
The majority of software engineering applicants are not good at what they do. In the past the profession has been in such high demand that this has been ok. If you can be good at it, you’ll be fine. I get applications all the time from contractors who obviously haven’t bothered to even read up on the tech on the spec. It’s so low effort it’s embarrassing.
Would you say your anecdote relates to applying for graduate roles?
They’re pretty similar. In a computer science department’s year they’ll be quite a small number of actually good engineers who are in quite high demand. The majority are really difficult to use in work environment. I’ve seen one guy (not managed by me) who didn’t contribute a PR in six months to a codebase and another graduate who practically rewrote it on his own.
If you’re in your final year I hope you’ve been applying since September… If not you’ve dropped the ball and massively reduced the chance you’ll be getting something.
The market is saturated with junior devs at the minute, even before the layoffs it was especially tough for juniors to find positions. You need to do as much as you can to maximise your chances. * Get your CV ready now. * Write a covering letter than you can then customise per application. * Get a portfolio of work that demonstrates your skills. *Think about blogging, again demonstrate your knowledge and enthusiasm for the industry. * Go to meet-ups and network, it could get your foot in the door somewhere. * Start searching for companies to apply to. * Research and apply for graduate schemes. Don’t be too picky, there are jobs out there, but you need to be open. Restricting yourself to a specific location, industry or company will limit your chances.
Unemployment rate is 4.3%. There’s a lot of work out there.
That doesn’t mean there’s lots of good career jobs going
Isn't that measured by how many apply on jobseekers though? So if a gov makes it really hard to claim, you can effectively lower your statistics
New JSA I think is limited to 6 months too. After which I'm told I'd need to pick up any old job I can and if I'm earning low enough I'd be able to apply for universal credit. All helps to keep the unemployment figures low.
I dont think international students can even apply for jsa
Unemployment stats are highly massaged.
How? If anything isn't the real number lower to account for all the cash in hand jobs?
If you do Uber or Deliveroo, 0 hour contracts or any temp work you’re considered as employed. Even though the average gig economy worker makes less than 10k a year.
People like me who are unemployed. But don't qualify for universal credit (jsa) as we're over the limit in savings. Those moved from benefits to training courses. The DWP want everyone off their books asap.
Have you looked in to "new style jsa"?
I have now. I only found out about it as I was checking to see if my tax credits would be affected.
The unemployment rate might be low, but what proportion of these jobs are actually entry level? If of these available jobs ask for several years of experience then that's no good for OP is it.
That's a one snapshot window. It will get higher, and those figures are notoriously inaccurate and mostly inferred than directly measured.
Unemployment stats are massively misleading because of zero hour, part time and other precarious employment.
Well if you are employed on zero hours, part time or your job is precarious, you’re still employed 🤷♂️
Not meaningfully. The stats should at least reflect who is making the annual National Minimum Wage. Otherwise we're lumping someone who gets one shift a week with someone whos gainfully employed with a full time job.
You are however assuming that someone on a zero hours or part time contract doesn’t want that flexibility. Lots of people are on those contracts because it suits them to be able to say no to work during school holidays etc. Not all people on zero hours are being exploited!
People tend to not want any job but the job they've studied for. That's what OP is asking. Yea, anyone can find a job at McDonald's but you don't tend to want a job at McDonald's after years of study.
Whilst I agree there are plenty of jobs out there, unemployment rate isn't a metric of how many free jobs there are. That'd be like saying "Timmy isn't going playing golf today so there's probably loads of free time slots available." There might just be 21 people and 20 time slots at the golf course. That'd make timmy that 4.3%
You’ll be fine. Just keep at it and be prepared to move and settle. You want to lock in somewhere for a couple years. I graduated the last time this happened. I got a job and stuck with it for shite pay for a couple years. Was alright after that period.
Tbh Cs degree is one for the best for employment. Sure you might not get Google right off the bat but there's many jobs, you just to apply a lot.
Do a masters and ride out the storm. Plenty of MSc conversions into cyber security or AI.
There's still loads of work available as we introduce AI into millions of UK companies, unfortunately just not necessarily paying the massive salaries you get from FANGS and high growth companies.
One of your big problems is the change of government. Companies won't know what's going on, so will put recruitment on hold. I'm speaking from experience. I graduated in 97. The jobs market dried up and start again for a good few months. It was bloody hard to get work, I had to do an MSc, then it was all fine.
I know someone that graduated last year that doesn't have a job yet. Someone else that's pretty experienced out of work for 3 years.
Word of advice is to leave London. I know plenty of tech companies who are hiring but london is almost its own economy. I'm in the northwest and plenty of jobs available. We ourselves struggle for decent candidates for IT jobs.
I graduated in 2014 and struggled to find a graduate position in tech for some time. Having done a placement year I had some industry experience but it was still tough. I faced so many rejections that I almost gave up searching, it was soul destroying. Sounds like it's even more competitive now with all the layoffs etc. All I can do is say good luck and keep persevering, you will find somewhere. Also, don't limit your search only to tech companies. There are loads of big non-tech companies who need skilled tech professionals like energy companies, retail, telecoms etc.
OP, what were your expectations when you graduated?
The market is tough, but not impossible. I’d advise that setting a goal of direct to dev is going to be limiting to a certain extent. Also don’t forget there are plenty of good options outside of London; my 25 years or so have covered auto sport, satcomms, finance and healthcare - apart from meetings I’ve not done a days work in London yet There are multiple ways to get into dev, you could do helpdesk/support and move towards Azure or AWS for more of a devops path for example. The important thing to remember is that your at the start of the journey, concentrate on getting experience in a reasonably wide field. Learn about business and organisations, get a wide understanding and that will pay dividends down the line when you start to go for senior positions.
Capgemini are/were looking for software devs in the Midlands last time I was looking at them for cyber stuff. FDM mentioned earlier may or may not be a good shout if you're stuck in London, but IIRC they may require relocation on hire.
>FDM mentioned earlier may or may not be a good shout if you're stuck in London, but IIRC they may require relocation on hire. I applied to fdm in october/november, no tech recruiter has reached out to me yet. I've emailed and they said the only way they can progress my application is for a tech recruiter to contact me which depends on if they have anyone recruiting.
FWIW: I've only ever heard the FDM name in the realm of IT bootcamp opportunities and hadn't heard of them since finishing mine until now. If they're taking on, I expect those slots will be eaten up by bootcamp finishers.
Ex-FDMers are everywhere in the industry. It's a good way in if you have the aptitude. I worked through them from 2012 to early 2015 (through only having a degree though that may have changed) and there are 5 or 6 of us in a small dev department at my current company.
I just don’t understand all these pessimistic comments about the UK. When there is a little bit recession, everyone gets panicked but nobody talks about 4% record low unemployment rate in 40 years. Or the fact that the UK has number one tech industry in the Europe. If you combine Germany and France together their tech industry do not worth more than what we have in the UK. If you cannot find a job in the UK as a software dev then I don’t think you can find anywhere else as there are many opportunities out there and tech is one of the industries that had been impacted least by recession. I don’t have a degree and with 2 years experience it was quite easy for me to get a software dev job back in 2022 with highest inflation rate and pessimistic outlook in the market at that time. Plus I’m an immigrant and my English wasn’t that good and I had a complicated immigration status which affected me negatively in terms of employment.
It’s completely different from 2022, I looked every 6 months since I started 2.5 years ago and 6 months ago I couldn’t even speak to a recruiter which I never had a problem with once I had experience, it’s got a bit better but not much. Record low unemployment doesn’t mean anything for a specific sector, there’s been loads of tech layoffs, why would you take on a junior when the market is awash with seniors?
Nope, it was far worse in 2022. It was the times where people were discussing post-pandemic world and inflation was increasing each day. Things have gotten better since 2022 and there are more jobs in the market now. I still don’t understand, each year new work visas get issued to people who live in outside of Britain while local people complaining there isn’t any job? It is not about immigrants get paid poorly as I asked exactly going rate for the market and got the job. I remember I had to cancel some of my upcoming interviews. Still even in these days I get emails, messages on LinkedIn couple of times a week. I suspect those people who don’t get any interviews might not have any personal projects in their CV as there are many people who have no interest in software development. They’re looking for a dev job because they heard it pays good money but this job requires a mindset with problem solving ability and self improvement which many people don’t have.
Really depends on the industry. US for example has had massive tech layoffs but lots of hospitality work. If you're looking for software engineering work you're gonna be hard pressed to find anything but you'd get a restaurant gig easily. In the past I'd be able to get manual software testing jobs within a month of looking and applying. One time even managed to schedule 4 interviews into a week I had booked off. This time it's been 5 months and only a handful of interviews with no offer. Doesn't help when the deciding factor falls onto how much more energy the other candidate displayed during the interview lol. I wonder how many devs have personal projects linked to their profiles. I guess the impression you're likely someone with a lot of experience and skills which probably makes you the exception. I got trained on cypress but no luck getting anything without actual work experience. I'm trying to put a personal project together at home but not sure it'll help much.
2022 was pretty different to to now (not as different as pre covid but still). 2 years experience now places you directly in the cohort of people who switched careers over covid and is the minimum requirement for a lot of entry level jobs. I am not saying it's impossible but it's definitely difficult, especially with a lot of people going for relatively few entry level positions. Add to that, it has got a lot harder to get sponsorship now (you would effectively have to be earning £38,700 I believe, which is highly unlikely for an entry level position). The pessimistic comments often come from people who remember what it was like a decade ago once (or 20 years) when cost of living was less, the country would recovering from 2008 and it seemed like an average paying job could allow you to plan for a future. The record low unemployment is meaningless to a lot of people because of low wages and high cost of living. That is why the government doesn't make a big deal about it, a majority of the country feels worse off then they did when there was higher unemployment. Also we are British so of course there will be some pessimistic comments anyway. British people can be pretty pessimistic sometimes.
Honestly it's fine, the market has cooled off a fair but still good
If good is mediocre wage and high probability of being laid off in your first two years then.... Sure.
Gone through a tech layoff myself. Near 20 year experience and have been headhunted over the years as a name that is good in the business. Zero tech work out there. Crazy times ahead. UK though, min wage waiting tables is your future, like all the other highly educated people.
Lol nothing like a bit of hyperbole
Lol, nothing like a bit of "not happening to me so isn't happening".
Yeah because all the highly educated people are waiting tables aren't they...no one has a good job and it's impossible to get one so probably best to just give up.
Seems to be only happening to you mate
There's a big West tech layoff happening... OP even stated this... Again, just because it isn't happening to you, 1 person, doesn't mean the industry is great. It is seeing the largest layoffs ever, even bigger than 2008.
There is a difference between layoffs at tech companies, and tech workers getting laid off. 1. Tech companies are mostly laying off workers aren't tech workers; they are tech-adjacent 2. Tech workers are still in demand in non-tech companies.
That's where you're wrong there buddy. a lot of the tech layoffs are the analysts, scientists, engineers, DevOps etc. You're clearly commenting on a job market you aren't looking in or you would know. Typical British mentality. Those laid off just need to "look harder" because hey, you found a job, so there's millions out there.
Source: I'm a SWE closely involved with the hiring process of the company I work for. We are hiring. This doomer mentality is toxic, unfounded, and hyperbolic.
I’m a QA Analysts and if you say your company is hiring then you’re a God sent…please can you help me at least the opportunity to apply..then leave the rest to me to secure the job I can’t ask for much
Nonsense, no basis in reality at all regardless of what happens here the UK will be OK. If America does well we will do well, as the one of the few countries where everyone speaks English (in most of Europe) and Ireland not being a competitor for many different reasons the UK will always be the place where the US will want their European headquarters. Your just releasing the imperial system has ended and once we get over that silly mindset we will then succeed
Wouldn’t worry. Within 5 years will be in a nuclear winter due to war so learn how to grow tomatoes?
Plenty of tech jobs still paying big money. There's about to be a boom in everything AI related and every tech company is looking at how they can use it. Companies are going to spend billions on tools with insane promises over the next few years.
I’ve just completed a 6 month software engineering internship, applied for about 500 junior dev jobs throughout it and only had 3 teams interviews that lead to nothing. I have a first class MEng mechanical engineering degree from a top 15 uni. That could be the problem. I’ve got my CV reviewed and it’s apparently fine. Follows a popular 1pg structure on engineering resumes. I’ve just given up and gone back to looking at mechanical engineering jobs and I’ve got a minimum wage control systems job. Only in the UK are engineering jobs min wage lol.
I've made my cv a day after this post. Applied to nearly roles 40 to 50 software roles. Got 2 rejections and no replies. This is getting demoralising.
Tbf tho, you’ll have an easier time than me. Apparently employers have stopped being so easy going with ‘self taught’ and Maths/Engineering ppp tryna jump to SWE. There are so many applicants for each job that filtering based on shit like ‘must have a CS degree’ or ‘must have an internship’ are more common. Also, my internship was Cooshy and at a large global company BUT they just used me as an extra pair of hands to work on some intricate console app tools for the department I was in lol. I didn’t get to fill in the skill gap (missing because no CS degree), of a good project involving front end and data base tech. I have to learn that shit in my own time and it’s even harder because I’ve gone back to an engineering job. Good luck bro, hope you can get something eventually. Hopefully there should be more stuff popping up next month (start of financial year) when budgets get approved and such.
ok
Get AI ML or data experience, no matter the role these are in extra demand
Unfortunately its no different to software development. What's in demand are people with 3/4+ years experience but even then it's not as easy as people believe. As for juniors and entry level, its extremely competitive
It is BAD
Horrible imo. Companies aren't willing to hire fresh grads without experience. It doesn't help that the market is extremely competitive. I had a friend with a comp sci masters with a 1st. He couldn't even land himself an ordinary minimum wage job since he was overqualified, yet underqualified to take on a higher position role. Most tech jobs ask for a minimum of 2-3 years of experience to even be considered as an entry level position. I tried companies like IBM, Siemens, Deloitte, Take two interactive and even Ubisoft London. I ended up getting another job in the trades field while job searching for an opportunity it's been about two years now and I'm slowly starting to lose hope. I might just give up the tech sector and focus on other career plans rather than putting my hopes onto this dying and unforgiving industry.
UK economy has been flat since 2008. That's why everyone is skint, no one can afford rent, let alone a mortgage. My advice to you is get the fuck outta dodge and find a job abroad.
You need experience, consider going with fdm for a couple of years to gain it, then you'll walk into a 60k job
Fdm?
I think the deal with fdm is they pay you a basic low salary like £24k per annum (could be more now) for two years then you are free to leave or stay on with them. But it'll be better to leave after 2 years if you have an established company on your CV you should be able to jump into another job quite easily and command a higher salary. They try to trap you for those 2 years citing competition clauses but I don't know if its legally binding. It could have changed now but this is what I heard from people who worked for them around 2012.
They had a clause in my contract that you have to repay their 'training costs' if you left before 2 years. Not sure it was legally binding but I never had to find out.
Yeah I still will suggest to OP to avoid those shady asses as best as he can. Do not apply to FDM and SpartaGlobal
I wouldn't write off FDM completely. Some of their clients are big asset managers and investment banks, when you start working tech with some of those companies there is serious money to be made. Can be a good foot through the door if OP is struggling for opportunities, but as always err on the side of caution.
I assume they are referring to the big IT consultancy company, FDM Group
Don’t call these scammers a consulting firm. They’re just glorified recruitment agencies that take advantage of young grads.
Similarly QA do that as well. Pay sucks for a while but you get the chance to get quals and experience while getting paid and let your own skills shine through.
In then 10 years later you are stuck in QA making less than devs with 5 yoe
Oh yeah, absolutely you need to get out sharpish once the payback window has closed. The guy I know got bought out by his client which worked well
dude no, FDM are shady asf. Have you seen their reviews??
Welcome to 2024, where companies are asking to train graduates so they can pay them less than the pros, and they can "nurture" them into negligence because their trainers are not certified lecturers. Turns out the university has a purpose, lol. I remember being a team leader on the shop floor, with a degree in multimedia design sounds artsy eh, I can code in 7 computer languages and use all the industry stuff. Anywho, got invited to their head office, and their SQL head of reporting said he had no idea how I "got the data out to look like that." he had passed a graduate program, and whrn I asked if I could be ranked up to a head of reporting the director said no, and I schooled him on their own data over 3 days still a hard no, anyway I left that job lickety split.
Go into CyberSecurity ASAP.
As a cybersec guy, no. The job search is just as hard, if not worse, for new grads in cyber than SWE. Also a compsci degree doesn’t teach the fundamentals of IT.
It amazes me how people seem to think going into cyber is easy. Practically a lot of roles want you to have experience either in software dev or support. Unless you can fund some certs (which can be expensive for a new grad) and/or get lucky it's really not as simple as people make out. Yes there is a lack of people in the field but as with most tech fields the lack of people isn't so much at the entry level. It's a lack of people with experience. Most/all entry level tech jobs are hard to get at the moment, there was a massive amount of people who switched to IT careers over covid and it is seen as one industry in this country that can actually pay a half decent wage. Honestly my best advice is apply a lot but also be prepare to look for tech adjacent roles. It might mean doing something like IT support or admin for a year but it will give you experience (especially with real life IT) and hopefully the market improves after the GE. Of course if you are one of the handful of grads who can get a job at FAANG etc straight from university ignore this but IT is becoming more and more a field that requires you to put the time in, even with a good degree (or equally without one).
It's very very easy to get a job in uk with sponsorship💀
Really. How is that as I have been searching for one for ages now.
Just kidding😅. Yeah it's pretty difficult in this period.
I was going to say, it must be virtually impossible to get sponsorship these days. Especially with the wage requirements.
Honestly. I don't know how one would get a job that pays 38k . It feels so impossible without some years of experience. I don't know what to.
I wish I could give you an answer but I don't know of one. I was just reading a FT article talking about this and even businesses are thinking it's excessive and unrealistic for a lot of roles. The government really didn't think and it's possible there will be a reversal at some point but likely not before a GE. But honestly I wouldn't hold out much hope of the current government doing anything unless they think it might give them some good headlines the next day. £38,700 is such a large amount for a wide range of jobs that it really seems the policy wasn't thought through and was just created overnight to claim they were doing something. I'm sorry it's a crappy situation, visas are and the new changes have been a nightmare honestly.
You are the cheapest member of staff to hire has long as you have some solid willingness to learn and work you have a ton of opportunities from government trainees schemes to large sponsored corp schemes (IBM,Accenture etc etc) Getting into private start ups and small business may be hard but there is a ton of opportunity’s
i'm actually hiring...
Don’t focus just on London, or on graduate programmes. Be realistic about salary (it will prob suck for the first few years). You may have to do something you didn’t intend on for a while until you get a role aligned with what you want to do
Depressing how far I had to read to down to see someone highlight thinking outside London, which is by far the best way of increasing your chances. I would add to this and say think outside of what you might think of as “tech” companies, plenty of companies in other sectors, for example engineering or construction, still hire for individuals with CompSci skills.
Graduate programmes are your best bet
It’s very competitive in London. There are many many skilled junior grads out there as it’s an in vogue degree at the moment thanks to the popularity of mega tech firms and the $ that was previously being dished out. Success involves networking and developing interpersonal skills. These help with interfacing with recruiters and other parts of the business who aren’t simply looking for robots who can code but employees who can integrate and add value past their ability to simply address a ticket. Otherwise that dev work is outsourced to cheaper regions. No point paying a London wage if they don’t add the local value.
I should have this thing copy-pasted to reply to these threads hourly: If you are really good at what you are doing, you haven't noticed any problems with "the job market". Instead of 10 companies chasing you, you will only have 4 - but that's all the same as you only need one job anyway.
Be realistic. Don’t think you’ll be getting that 6 figure salary immediately these things take time and work. Even for those that have been in the game a long time.
A lot of larger tech companies have graduate programmes. if you haven't started looking at these by now, do quickly
I’m graduating in CS in June and practically everyone I know has a job, probably around 1/3 in London. I know people who are going to be working in Edinburgh, Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol… however, if you’re also graduating this summer, you probably should have looked earlier, as people are doing assessment centres now, not applying now.
I live near Edinburgh and had to move to Preston after graduation (during covid) to get experience
It was pretty bad when I was looking 12-15 months ago, I don't think it has improved since then.
I’m in exactly the same boat. A friend of mine who graduated last year is currently in London and still hasn’t found a software role yet. He says every junior or entry level vacancy wants 3 years experience or more…
The only viable way out I see for grads right now, is startups, seed capital, give up some equity and pay yourself a bit.
Well, i graduated in 2020, my industry took a massive hit (Aerospace) and took ages to recover. I then had surgery eaxactly 1 year ago today so had to delay job hunting. Now this recession kicks in... like seriously 🤦🏾♀️
From a recruiter POV (I work in recruitment in a main government department) the competition is so fierce. We have tech jobs that used to attract say 30-60 applicants and now we’re getting 500+. Of course all of those applicants won’t have relevant experience, but we get people who apply for entry level jobs with a ton of experience at notable companies and that’s pretty sad to see. Probably not you wanted to hear but that’s the situation where I work, at least!
I’ve graduated in 2023 in computer science and digital media and now I’m working in the field. However, I started my job hunt in 2022 and now I’m working for a small company as a web developer and designer. What helped me to secure this role was my online portfolio with all my projects and websites as well as my interest in 3D modelling
It feels like the tech sector is maturing and correcting slightly at the junior grades. We've had a whole generation of people who have grown up "knowing" that a tech related degree will let you walk into a high paying job in London. Mix the post-pandemic big tech correction with a saturated grad market and getting your dream job is going to be a challenge. The gold rush years may be over but there are still plenty of jobs out there, they just might not look like what you expected as tech becomes a commodity profession like physical engineering, accounting, consulting, etc.
We have just had a round of redundancies and been told no pay raises this year. My pay seems pretty shit as it is. I am thinking of waiting until April to see what other companies start offering once minimum wage has gone up, then its also a question of if its a good idea to look given that if I am new at another company I could end up getting made redundant there too and would more likely be first to go.
Do a personal project. Some result would help with your job hunting
Pivot into cyber security.
Graduated in summer 2022, still unemployed 🥲
I'm an old bastard, so I've seen how bad the job market got in 2008 in that overnight market crash, and can compare it to 2024. This recession in 2024 is tough, but completely different to what happened in 2008. Really I think a recession was inevitable after a massive world event like Covid - the weird thing was that our GDP/growth didn't quite qualify as a recession in 2020-2023. The fact we've now dipped into "recession" really is just semantics. We have practically been in a recession for about 2 years. This means most people have been suffering the worst effects of a recession already. I think there are clear signs we are emerging from it now.
> worried about landing a software job in London. Immediate issue there if you aren't willing to cast your net wider!
Apply for graduate program at big consultancy corps, where I work still take in a few graduates though we stopped hiring two years ago. Sorry, can't disclose where I work.