The guardian reports today that average web developer’s salaries have risen by a whopping 23% in the last year.
Definitely a sign that we’re in the midst of a tech boom. Interestingly, the article claims that the retail sector is driving the demand.
I hope this signals the end of companies seeing development as something to be out-sourced or off-shored. It would be good to see more companies build core technical capability in-house and stop taking the advice of the snake-oil consultancies that seem to profit most from out-sourcing deals.
UK retail in particular has been very poorly served by the delivery of truly awful website technology from expensive and well-known consultancies.
All this while their board was wondering how Amazon and eBay were eating their online lunch.
As a side note, I wonder how those consultancies had any time to do anything at all. Surely they were busy taking government money to deliver mis-sold and poorly thought out public IT fiascos.
Anyway, good news that in-house development is starting to be recognised, financially at least, as a strategic differentiator after nearly a decade of being undervalued and underpaid.
Anyone looking to recruit right now should be warned though. With so many developers now opting again for contracting over full-time employment, I’m sure salaries haven’t yet reached anything like a peak.
4 comments ↓
Hey Ben,
Since we are on the subject of botched government IT projects and over-paid consultancies, let me kick start your comment page with this thought (which might be toying at the back of your mind already)
That the UK government should catch-up with other European countries in mandating all public agencies to use open-source software. As far as i am aware, the Mexican government is the first to pioneer this approach. Another high profile case was a few years ago when the German local government awarded a contract in favour of Linux rather than Microsoft.
If you are thinking of filling your time in between tinkling with Python, you can always drive this cause forward
Cheers,
R
I’m hoping you meant ‘tinkering with Python’ or people will get entirely the wrong idea about my current activities…
It’s a good point you make - subject of a future blog-post methinks.
‘tinkering with Python’ indeed! but knowing you, i won’t be surprised if you are indeed doing a bit of tinkling(!)
Hi Ben
How’s things.
Unfortunately a rise in costs business face will probably mean an increase in the demand for off shoring (although off shore costs are probably rising just as fast). Few businesses seem to see the value that can be added throught IT spend….
Tony
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