Tech layoffs are coming thick and fast, and if you work in the sector, there’s no putting your head in the sand. Tracker site Layoffs.fyi indicates that 340 tech companies have let 101,807 employees go since the start of the year.
Last week brought more bad news: veteran company Yahoo announced it will cut 20% of its total 8,600 workforce as part of a major restructuring; Dell said it would be culling 6,650 jobs, and Zoom is planning a 1,300-person layoff.
That’s on top of many other layoffs: Amazon has shed more than 18,000 employees, Meta has laid off around 11,000 people and Google’s parent company Alphabet has plans to let go of 12,000 workers.
It isn’t all bad news, however. Job cuts are happening but they tend to be concentrated within specific job segments. Sales roles account for 20% of laid-off tech workers, according to Layoffs.fyi’s founder Roger Lee. Recruiting and HR are suffering too, as these roles fall prey to automation. Yahoo, for example, is reorganising its advertising unit, and plans to cut half of the department’s staff by the end of the year.
Scale-ups
In the UK, the government is aiming to strengthen scale-up companies with a new scale-up visa, which was announced last August. Offering flexibility and the ability to hire globally, it is designed to fuel home-grown success and allow companies to sponsor talent, including scientists, engineers, and programmers.
Britain’s scale-ups have grown by 20% or more in employees or turnover in the last three years, and according to London & Partners, the business growth agency, things are looking bright. It has identified 50 companies as part of an annual “Scale Up Club”. These include PureLiFi, a high speed bi-directional and fully networked light communications company; RideTandem, which uses local transport providers to create smart shuttles, and Oxford Heartbeat, a digital health platform.
Recent data compiled by Deloitte shows that the European tech industry remains robust, particularly in the fields of mechanical engineering, and the technology powering the automotive industry. Tech has accounted for sales of €1.5 trillion and more than 8% of European economic output, with software alone accounting for around 30% of industry revenue.
Growth jobs
While sales and recruitment may be in decline within the wider industry, there are many tech jobs that are showing growth, and which are expected to continue growing into the future. Some of these jobs are detailed below, with plenty more to discover on the TechInformed Job Board.
1. Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Engineer
The demand for AI and ML experts is growing as organisations adopt these technologies to automate tasks, improve decision-making, and gain insights from data. If this is your area, Meta is seeking a Lead Research Engineer, Machine Perception for AR/VR to lead a team of research and software engineers to design, build and iterate on complex SW-HW co-designed machine perception systems.
2. Data Scientist
Data is being generated at an unprecedented rate, and organisations need individuals who can collect, process, and analyse this data to make informed decisions. Octopus Energy is looking for a Data Scientist to join its team. Among other tasks, you’ll ingest the latest data, and build robust, well-tested pipelines that give the company confidence in its data modelling.
3. Cloud Engineer
Cloud computing has become the new normal, and organisations are seeking experts who can help them move their infrastructure and applications to the cloud and manage them effectively. A SWE – Cloud Native Engineer, Security role is currently on offer at Apple. You should apply if you have a security/systems mindset, and familiarity with software development and/or production operations experience with large-scale distributed systems.
4. Cybersecurity Specialist
As the number of cyber threats continues to rise, organisations are investing in cybersecurity measures to protect their assets, and there is a growing demand for specialists who can help them do this. At Citi in London, there is a Lead Technical Cyber Intelligence Analyst role on offer. If you are a senior level professional responsible for driving efforts to prevent, monitor and respond to information/data breaches and cyber-attacks, this could be the job for you.
5. Full-Stack Developer
Full-stack developers who can work with front-end and back-end technologies and develop complete web applications are in high demand as organisations strive to build and deploy applications quickly. Starling Bank has a Full Stack Developer job on offer: you’ll be truly full stack, as comfortable polishing your javascript front end as you are debugging the innards of java applications database interactions, or tweaking CloudFormation templates.
6. DevOps Engineer
DevOps is a software development methodology that emphasises collaboration and communication between software developers and IT operations professionals, and there is a growing demand for professionals who can help organisations adopt this methodology and streamline their software development process. IBM is hiring a Devops Engineer for one of its Consulting Client Innovation Centres, where you’ll work with visionaries across multiple industries to improve the hybrid cloud and AI journey for the most innovative and valuable companies in the world.
Discover growing tech jobs all across the UK and beyond on the TechInformed Job Board
Share
