Recently Searchability released our 2025 Salary & Market Insights Guide – a free insight report for UK employers looking to attract, engage and retain tech talent. Unlike other salary reports, ours focused solely on the UK Tech Market, sharing insights from thousands of UK data points alongside key Searchability insights including data insights and candidate feedback.
Thousands of employers have already downloaded their free copy (you can download your free copy right here), and we thought we’d roundup a few of the key trends and insights to assist your tech talent hiring strategy in 2025!
70% of candidates are considering a career move
This isn’t to say that this many tech professionals are actively looking for a new job with a different employer, however 70% of candidates we surveyed said they would consider a career move in 2025. It’s never been so important to benchmark your salaries, measure employee engagement and check-in with your employee experience for your retention strategy. On the flip side, this could mean that now is the best time to think about hiring new tech professionals for your company.
Movement is driven by progression and the cost of living
Why are so many tech professionals open to making a career move? Career progression topped the list. Tech professionals are seeking that next step, so if you’re failing to foster a culture that supports progression, encourages employees to develop their skills, and renumerates talent appropriately, then you could be losing talent this year. The second motivator – the UK cost of living crisis. Inflation is out-pacing salary growth for many professionals, and given the fact that making a career move can often lead to higher jumps in salary than staying in one organisation, it’s no surprise that this is driving many professionals into the job market.
86% of CIOs noted increased competition for tech talent
Tech professionals may be open to a job move, but the competition for talent is still extremely high. There’s more demand for skills than there are candidates among some sectors, which is impacting some salary bandings and making it increasingly difficult to attract direct candidates, even for companies who have a stellar employer brand.
96% of employers reported challenges engaging junior talent
Think it’s just the senior tech talent that’s hard to hire? Think again! According to HR Magazine, 96% of employers reported challenges engaging workers with less than 10 years in work, including Gen Z and younger Millennials. The Guardian also found recently that whilst average application rates for graduate jobs were up 23%, over half of employers still reported difficulties filling graduate vacancies.
Data specialists are in demand – up 4% in the last year
The fastest growing job title of 2024 was Data Specialist. In a market that suggested some organisations were scaling back on hiring, it seems that many companies were prioritising investment into data science, consumer analytics and business intelligence. Data driven decision making is key to organisational success, so if you are looking to hire data professionals for your team then be prepared to compete for the best candidates!
Microsoft Azure Machine Learning is the fastest growing skill – up 49% in 2024
Machine learning is playing a huge part in the data strategies for tech teams, in fact the skill of Microsoft Azure Machine Learning was up a whopping 49% in the last year! Azure Machine Learning enables users to train a model on multiple distributed datasets. It’s accessibility, scalability and flexibility make it the PaaS of choice for many tech and data teams, and we’re interested to see how this grows in 2025.
Top tech employers in the UK: NHS and AtkinsRéalis
The NHS topped the list of UK employers with the most tech employees (10,000) in roles including “Administrator”, “Data Analyst” and “System Administrator”. When it came to fastest growing tech teams, AtkinsRéalis topped the list, up 19% in 2024, with biggest job function increases in roles including “Engineering Analyst”, “Technology Support Analyst” and “Associate Software Engineer”.
Flexible working trumps money
The number one employer value proposition tech candidates want in 2025? Flexible work arrangements! That’s access to remote and hybrid working, and more flexibility around the hours they work. This came in just above “excellent compensation and benefits”, and “job security”. 2024 saw a huge pivot for many tech companies on their remote working policies, however it’s evident that companies who can offer flexible / hybrid working will stand-out in the job market.
Candidates are seeking more from their employer
Candidates aren’t just seeking more flexibility and higher salaries; we are seeing trends across other key motivators too. Social impact, aligning to the brand’s vision, ability to make an impact, supportive managers are just some of the employer value propositions candidates are prioritising in 2025.
88% of job seekers consider a company’s employer brand when applying to a role
2025 could be the perfect time to grow your tech time, but if your employer brand isn’t shaping up then you could struggle to attract the talent you need. On a surface level you want to check your Glassdoor reviews and rating, your social feed, advocacy footprint and careers site content – there are often some immediate tweaks you can make to improve your employer brand presence. On a deeper level, companies need to look at employer brand from the inside out, conducting research to actively shape their EB through internal frameworks, culture shifts and activation strategies.
Want to access more insights and unlock over 400 salary reports for the UK tech and digital market? Click here to download the report in full.
