With a strong talent pool in the UK, the software and manual Testing market has seen it’s fair share of fluctuations over the years. As we move through Q2, Sanderson Senior Consultant Elias Ofosu shares his thoughts on the Testing job market.

After a quiet Q1, Q2 has seen a steady rise in Testing vacancies, particularly for contract positions. Automation testing skills are in high demand, with companies seeking candidates experienced in tools like Selenium WebDriver, Cypress, and Specflow.

While there is still demand for manual testers, it doesn’t compare to the market for automation testers, which is in line with most industries shifting away from manual testing roles.

Over the past few months, we’ve noticed a trend in the number of organisations offshoring their QA function while keeping the Development team onshore. There are several potential reasons for this, including increased efficiencies, cost reductions and access to talent in job markets such as India and Central Europe.

However, the UK has an extensive and talented Testing talent pool, so this trend leads to an interesting question. How do engineering departments view QA in 2024? Is it an essential function with an equal voice in software engineering? Is it a job that should sit embedded with a software engineering team? Should developers take responsibility for end-to-end quality, or is it simply a cost centre that gets in the way of producing features at pace?

To find out more and to read our Test Automation Engineer Specialism Spotlight with an overview of talent pool location, salary ranges and gender splits, download your copy of our latest Technology & Digital Insights Report here.

If reading this has sparked a need for insights into your market, contact our expert Talent Insights Team today. We use a variety of first-hand research techniques, tools and proprietary data to help you understand more about the trends and opportunities within your market.

As we move through Q2, our Scotland based Senior Consultant Greg Gavin offers you his view on the current state of the Software Engineering job world, with a focus on the Scottish market.

The market across Software Engineering in Q1 2024 started similarly to how it ended in 2023 – relatively quiet. Whilst this fluctuation is expected as we transition into a new year, the market was hesitant to revert to the `usual volume’ of vacancies quickly.

Within the Scottish market, contract roles remain somewhat elusive, with more companies seeking to hire permanent staff where possible. This has been evident in the number of engineers on the contract market spending much greater periods looking for new roles. We expect the contract market to improve as the year progresses, as clients recognise urgent needs to reach deadlines.

The start of Q2 has seen a positive upturn in permanent vacancies. There have been significant opportunities for DevOps & Site Reliability Engineers (AWS appears to be the Cloud provider of choice). We’re also working with clients on a number of opportunities for full stack Software Engineers with wide ranging tech (specifically Node, TypeScript, JavaScript as well as backend tech like Python).

Additionally, we’re working with clients on several leadership roles (Head of Software Development, Engineering Manager, Head of Site Reliability Engineering etc.). Successful candidates in these roles will be busy from a recruitment perspective, as their immediate responsibilities will involve growing and scaling their teams.

If you’re interested to find out more as well as wanting to gain a deeper understanding of Technology and Digital job market as a whole this quarter, click here to download your copy of our latest Technology & Digital Insight Report today.

Our Talent Insights team are available to help you to understand more about talent trends, challenges and opportunities to make data-driven hiring decisions. Get in touch today if you would like to discuss the production of a bespoke report.

Sadly, and I think this is a direct product of automated processes, ghosting has become more and more common in the hiring process and is one of the biggest pain points for candidates in today’s job market.

What is interview ghosting?

This refers to the ceasing of all communication with a candidate after the interview.

As an interesting aside here, this is an extrapolation of the CV ghosting problem that arose as a product of email/internet/outsourcing (god this makes me feel old) many years ago. When I began a career in recruitment, some 30 years ago, the delivery of a candidate was personally done (often by hand, if not by fax – look it up youngsters!) with an associated conversation, giving the opportunity for full feedback loops to both sides. As a consequence all candidates got feedback on their CV submissions.

We lamented it when this disappeared, and in the main it has not returned – and is probably a product of busy hiring managers not having the time to feedback, processes not having the time to feedback, a lack of appetite for confrontation, or a societal shift to not wanting to deliver bad news.

What is the interview process?

The investment of energy from various parties to get to this point is significant, there is:

• the sourcing of the candidates (either through attraction or search, there is a cost associated with this);
• the processing of the application (manual, automated or otherwise, there is a requirement for people and systems to get the application to the correct person);
• then the review and subsequent organisation of the interview itself;
• and finally the interview, or series of interviews (often involving more than one person and more than one instance)

And then whilst the successful candidate is inevitably engaged (they wouldn’t be successful otherwise), what is the brand damage, and cost, associated with the unsuccessful interviewee’s?

The impact of being interview ghosted

The cold avoidance of full and frank feedback is disorientating and discouraging for the candidate. It is hard for them to not feel as though their time and efforts have been wasted, and inevitably they feel taken advantage of. They also have no idea where they missed the mark for the client, and what if they were a close fit, what if they could be suitable for another role, what if their experience develops over the coming months and they become suitable?

They in effect become a lost candidate to the business due to past experience, and in this day and age of critical candidate shortages that seems either short sighted or a touch arrogant.

Moving forwards

And so our message to hirers is don’t ghost. Give full and frank feedback to all interviewee’s, you never know when they may become a candidate again, or in specialist markets when they may be interviewing you in the future!

And to candidates, this isn’t your fault and is not just happening to you. This is fast becoming a standard in a market that is at risk of over processing and removing critical human touch points in the hiring process. All that nonresponse means is that you are not the front runner for the position that you were going for, so perhaps make the assumption you were a close second and move onto the next opportunity.

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Working in partnership with a leading technology-led defence and security solutions company, we successfully helped our client by sourcing, assessing and placing a diverse talent pool into their bespoke cyber security 6-month training programme. The project resulted in the onboarding of a cohort individuals, providing them with long term career prospects and enabling our client to futureproof their cyber security and engineering capabilities.

What was the challenge?

Exploring the criticality of establishing bespoke training initiatives and programmes to contribute to a sustainable and resilient cybersecurity ecosystem. The demand for cybersecurity professionals has surged in recent years, driven by the abundance of digital technologies, and the increasing frequency of cyber threats. As organisations race to fortify their defences against cyber threats, the scarcity of qualified cybersecurity talent has emerged as a bottleneck, threatening the very foundations of digital resilience.

What was the ask?

The initiative encompassed the attraction, recruitment, assessment, and onboarding of 15 individuals with diverse backgrounds and a passion for cybersecurity. These individuals then had to undergo a tailored six-month training program within their initial 12 months of employment. Following the training programme, individuals were aligned with national security projects within Cyber Engineering or Vulnerability Research capabilities. This program was designed to cater to a diverse pool of participants, including career returners, recent graduates, school leavers, and career changers.

What were the actions?

• Established a comprehensive project planning framework led by a committed project owner and a dedicated delivery team
• Orchestrated a highly effective marketing campaign comprising of podcasts, blogs, employee interviews, and infographics
• Collaborated and partnered with key organisations and educational institutions to facilitate diversification efforts
• Regularly conducted reporting on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (ED&I) initiatives
• Successfully implemented and maintained a technical assessment platform
• Provided support and guidance around security clearance eligibility
• Concluded with a thorough project review report covering output analysis
• Generated comprehensive market insights encompassing diversity, equity, and inclusion (ED&I), remuneration, geographical considerations, and educational qualifications

What were the outputs?

• Effectively sourced, assessed and placed 15 qualified candidates in specified locations within 4 months
• 100% of responsive individuals answered that they found the recruitment process positive, or very positive
• Created an extensive talent pool for future cohorts
• Over 20% of submissions identified as female – We helped create ED&I initiatives to support future recruitment
• 95% offer acceptance rate

Client Feedback

“We wanted to offer long-term careers to high-potential individuals, who will become tomorrow’s tech leads and SMEs. With the support and expertise from Sanderson Government & Defence we have successfully recruited 15 candidates onto this year’s programme with a range of skillsets and capabilities, all of whom will have the opportunity to develop and achieve within our organisation. We have looked for candidates from outside the existing community, including those from non-traditional backgrounds with self-taught skills.

The Sanderson Government & Defence team are highly engaged, responsive and proactive in their approach to recruitment. They supported with technical assessment platforms, and providing support for the on-boarding of new starters. Sanderson have also provided useful data addressing things like equity, diversity and inclusion of applicants.”

Contact our specialist team to find out more

Mollie Chamberlain – Head of Projects, Government & Defence

+44 7710 280 877

[email protected]

Our Permanent Recruitment Team Lead for the North and Midlands Holly Robinson offers her insights into the state of the market for architecture careers.

“Last year was relatively quiet in the architecture careers space, with around 10% of Architects switching employers. Having seen the usual seasonal slowdown towards the end of Q4, hiring demand for all architects is increasing.

We predict a standard mix of both permanent and contract hiring over 2024. While permanent architects are preferred, especially for long-term programmes, contractors with specialist skill sets or specific domain knowledge will always be in demand.

As cloud computing becomes the norm, customers are always looking for candidates with solid experience with cloud platforms such as Azure, AWS and Google Cloud to a lesser degree. Artificial Intelligence is also high on the mind as a skill set that customers are looking to hire and one that candidates are looking to upskill in or learn in a new role.”

Interested to find out more? You can read Sanderson’s full market analysis in our latest Technology & Digital Insights Report for Q1 2024.

Click here to download the full report.

Our Talent Insights team are available to help you to understand more about talent trends, challenges and opportunities to make data-driven hiring decisions.

In conjunction with TechBlast, we hosted a Tech Breakfast meet-up event at our Manchester office.

Raising investment is one of the biggest catch-22 scenarios facing many businesses. Hiring the best teams and building game-changing products all costs money, so how can a bootstrapped business be expected to navigate the investment minefield? Choosing the right investor is a good place to start, but what if you pick the wrong one?

On the 18th April, we welcomed Senior Tech founders, Advisors, NEDs and Angel Investors to our Manchester Office. 

• Our panel of founders and a panel of investors shared their own stories of dealing with different types of investment. It sparked some really insightful debates and discussions looking at both sides of the investment process.
• It was a a great opportunity to understand what a good investment looks like, and the type of approach to take when taking your company to market for investment. 

Thank you to everyone who joined us, it was a great morning of networking and listening to people’s personal experiences. We are looking forward to hosting more events like this in the future. 

Sandersons Principle Consultant Sian Dean gives her view on the current state of the data job market and looks at the importance of data skills for 2024 candidates.

“The Data market has remained strong over the past year, with just over one in five data professionals switching companies in 2023. All types of businesses recognise the importance of data and how it can help drive better decision-making, improve productivity and create competitive advantages.

While we are seeing demand for contract and permanent resources, we are seeing demand for contractors with specialist skillsets outpace demand for permanent staff. We are seeing candidates gravitate towards roles where they will get the opportunity to work with cloud technologies and where they will get exposure to Artificial intelligence.

Finally, in a world where more and more businesses are trying to get staff back into the office, we see that the demand for candidates with niche data skills, such as Data Engineers, is so high that they can still secure fully remote roles.”

Get the full report by downloading the 2024 Q1 insights report for Technology & Digital here.

Our expert talent insights team use a variety of first-hand research techniques, tools and proprietary data to help you understand more about the trends and opportunities within your market.

Our projects range from salary benchmarking for a single vacancy to multi-region competitor analysis and talent pool insights to support global location strategies. We offer a tailored service backed up by expertise, where we listen to your challenges and generate solution-based advice.

Responsible for developing and implementing many business-critical applications and software platforms, Java Developers have for a long time held specialised and essential roles in many defence sector organisations.  

But as we move through Q4, will the demand for security cleared Java Developers still be as strong?  

In this opinion piece, Sanderson’s Head of Recruitment Services for our Government & Defence team James Corcoran gives his thoughts on the current state of the market as well as his projections for the future of Java Developers in the defence sector.  

The current state of the Government & Defence sector job market 

In good news for the government & defence sector, we’re seeing indications that the market is slowly rebounding. This is driven largely by contract demand as security organisations continue to be cautious after a year of rationalisation.  

Certain roles are tending to have more demand than others, and a Java Developer is one of these in demand skill sets. This could account for the 8% increase in salary costs that we saw between Q2 2023 and Q3 2023.  

Software roles in demand 

Java is one of the most popular programming languages used in enterprise companies, yet despite this 8% salary increase, is it set to start losing ground in terms of companies wanting to hire these skills?  

There are several surveys which do actually show a decline starting. In fact StackOverflow’s Developer survey recorded a drop from 33.3% to 30.6%, whilst the TIOBE index in October 2023 showed that Java’s year-on-year rating had dropped by 3.9%. 

What does the future hold for Java Developers and the associated talent pool? 

A big question in my mind is, are we going to see a further decline?  

Certainly, Oracle’s decision to stop all security updates for Java 8 without a support agreement is a warning shot. This coupled with their decision to change their pricing model to a new one that, according to Gartner, could cost organisations from 2 to 5 times more in annual licensing costs, only fuels speculation for Java’s decline. 

In my opinion though, Java is not going anywhere. 

It’s still the fourth in TIOBE’s Programming Index, and combined with the salary increases we’ve seen, it’s a proven, secure, and safe programming language with a significant adoption rate in many organisations.  

Over the next 12-18 months I believe the Java talent pool will skew to the later generations, with more experienced candidates and, as a result, be more contract-driven over the next few years.  

Our talent solution 

If you want to stay ahead of the curve and ensure you’re hiring the right security cleared candidate in the Java Development field for your organisation, we can help.  

As specialists in sourcing hard to find talent we will always solve your talent problems through to completion. You can find out more about our Government & Defence Recruitment services here. 

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch and let me know how I can help you. 

James Corcoran, Head of Recruitment

[email protected], +44 (0) 748 430 0887   

We are delighted to have been awarded a Vendor Neutral Managed Service into two key divisions of the Cabinet Office, namely Government Digital Services (GDS) and the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO).

Our service, launched in April this year, is branded as Extended Talent and Services (ETS) reflecting the programme ambitions to capture a wide-ranging pool of DDaT and Commercial talent to augment civil service and partner delivered resources.

The key aims for the programme are:

• Implementation of an ambitious sourcing strategy providing multiple routes to market. To deliver a talent partner solution that helps GDS and CDDO remain competitive in the market and to make improved strategic sourcing decisions.
• Reductions in time-to-fill rates, whilst increasing and improving engagement with key strategic suppliers who specialise in the supply of workers across DDaT and Commercial areas.
• Access to quality market research, talent market trends and accurate pricing data to support more informed decision making and offer choice.
• Implement market leading technology to reduce the admin and contractual burden, ensure all processes are transparent, and offer real-time and supportive reporting

Commenting on this latest win, Nick Walrond, Managing Director of Sanderson Government & Defence said;

“We look forward to forging a long term and successful partnership with the GDS and CDDO teams, whilst building trusted and effective relationships with the critical supply chain. Our aim is to offer a route for new suppliers to be able to be onboarded quickly and easily in alignment with the future skills challenges faced by these key areas of government.”

Our Government and Defence team are going to be at the Security Cleared Expo in Bristol later this month.

As the leading innovative government and defence talent specialist, we are recognised for delivering exceptional teams into a wide range of clients.

We only recruit for the UK government and their critical supply chains, including: Ministry of Defence (MOD) and areas of National Security; Central Government and Arm’s Length Bodies; National Policing and Justice; and the broader Public Sector.

Come and meet our team

If you are looking for a new challenge and have security clearance, come and meet our talent solutions specialists at the forthcoming SC Expo to be held in Bristol on 25th April.

The event takes place from 10-3pm at Aerospace Bristol under the last Concorde aircraft to fly. Registration to the event is free – click here to secure your ticket.