source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b0f19e08-4b6e-11e2-88b5-00144feab49a.html#axzz2GY0haQjh
By Duncan Robinson | December 30, 2012 1:23 pm
Salaries across the UK technology sector rose as much as a quarter during 2012, as rocketing demand for skilled web designers and app developers stoked wage increases.
The average annual pay for an iPhone developer jumped by a quarter year-on-year, as apps became a must-have for even traditionally technophobic companies.
Developers for the iPhone, working in industries from publishing to healthcare, can except an annual salary of about £43,410, according to data from Adzuna, a jobs search engine.
The average yearly salary for a web designer, meanwhile, also rose 15 per cent year-on-year to £38,708.
Adzuna lists nearly every online job vacancy in the UK, and so its data are seen as giving a comprehensive outlook of the UK job market.
Spiralling wages are a symptom of increased demand from both the public and private sector, according to Scott Haddow, chief executive of Trustmarque, a software company based in York. “It’s classic supply and demand. The best people can choose the places that they join,” he said.
Average annual wages for new jobs in the IT sector rose to just shy of £40,000. Fears of continued wage inflation across the sector, however, are misplaced, according to analysts.
Richard Holway, chairman at TechMarketView, a technology research consultancy, said: “I doubt there will be significant wage inflation.”
Part of the rise in wages stems from limited supply, with everyone from banks to start-ups fighting over the pool of skilled applicants who are allowed to work in the UK. This pressure will ease in coming years, according to Mr Holway.
“We are clearly seeing more apprentices,” he said, adding that the lack of entry-level jobs created in previous years has led to a “five to ten year experience gap”.
“It is in the scarce skills arena that wages will be rising. But that has always been the case, whether significant wage inflation occurs or not.”
While these figures apply only to salaried jobs, day rates for freelance developers have also leapt this year, according to Daniel Sharp, director at Stonewash, an agency based in London that helps publishers put their content on smartphones and tablets.
“It’s not just salaries – freelancers and their agents have become increasingly mercenary,” said Mr Sharp. “I’ve seen iPhone developers try and ask for £600-800 per day – we’ve never run a project where that kind of outlay would make sense.”
With 1.1m jobs in IT advertised in 2012, the sector accounted for more vacancies than any other field, according to the figures from Adzuna.
The start-up, which is based in Clapham in south London, also feeds its data directly into the Downing Street Dashboard – an app used by senior members of the government to keep track of economic growth.
