Zebra’s 2019/2020 Salary Survey has been released, so I’ll be delving into its pages to pick out a few key trends we’ve picked up on when it comes to the technology market.

One aspect the survey covered is what the ‘must have skills’ for a developer in 2019’s market. As we focus more on the front end this is where the bulk of our respondees worked, so it was no surprise to see JavaScript and React way out in front.

We’ve seen a marked increase over the past few years of companies using React as their primary framework. This ranges from startups picking it from the get-go, or more established companies migrating towards it.
A lot of our respondees were from smaller companies, where they are expected to test as they code, hence that one breaking into the top 5.

What do developers want going forward?

Naturally, a pay rise came top of this one – though that applies to any walk of life! One thing we have seen a large increase in is a desire for increased flexibility within in the workplace; think flexi hours, remote working etc. Again, this branches across more than one sector but is something that has actually been implemented in several companies we work closely with. As a result they’ve seen an increased amount of applicants for roles, as well as a far more content workforce.
17% of developers said key to them is a challenging and new tech stack. In my experience a lot of the developers I talk with are not just looking to maintain their skills in a new role, but pick up new ones as well. This ties in well with the 10% that say training and development is the most important thing to them.

Salary Ranges by Sector

When the results of our salary survey came in the clearest thing was the stark contrast in salaries for each sector. Companies in the financial sector can offer salaries far more exceeding any other, which was much the same in our 2017 survey. Though there hasn’t been a massive increase in financial salaries, there have been increases in almost all other sectors, as well as for Senior Developers in general.

The sector with the biggest salary increase in general has been in agencies. This doesn’t come as a big surprise as historically they have always been paying towards the lower end of the scale. Generally, the benefits have been more attractive than in other sectors though it appears that salaries have had to rise in order to attract and maintain their talent.

When it comes to contract the market in 2019 was booming, though expect to see a slight downturn in 2020 when it comes to the amount of contract positions with IR35 incoming. 50% of contractors saw their rate increase over the previous year, with 74% of these seeing a marked increase of more than 10%. Similarly to permanent roles, day rates were highest in the financial sector.

Although IR35 hasn’t been fully rolled out yet, we have seen some companies offering a much higher rate than normal for contract roles, in order to counteract the increase in tax. It’s a trend to keep an eye on for 2020.

Read more

For those that are interested in reading the full survey the full survey is now available:

Read the Digital Salary Survey 2019-20