Northern cities outpacing London and the south for tech skills growth, research finds

London saw its first decline in technology talent since the start of the pandemic, figures show

The number of professionals with technology skills is expanding at a faster pace in the North of England than in London and the south, research from Accenture has found.

The IT services giant found demand for technology professionals is increasing in the UK as the technology jobs market continues to recover from the pandemic.

The professional services company obtained the data by using its UK Tech Talent Tracker to analyse LinkedIn's Professional Network data.

The figures show that London has maintained the lion's share of the U.K.'s open technology roles (68,000) with demand increasing by 89 per cent from last year.

But the data reveals there is sizeable potential for cities outside of the capital to become technology hubs in the future, with growth in demand increasing in Manchester (234 per cent), Birmingham (385 per cent) and Oxford (264 per cent).

And it found that the pool of technology talent in cities in the North of England has grown on average by 15 per cent in the last year, outpacing southern cities that grew on average at 9 per cent.

Figures show Manchester experienced the highest level of growth in technology talent (25 per cent) - predominantly driven by a 93 per cent increase in the number of cyber security professionals now based in the city - while London reported just 2 per cent growth in overall technology talent.

Despite London containing the most technology professionals in the UK, the number of people with technology skills in the capital declined by 6 per cent in the last six months - the first time it has seen a dip since the start of the pandemic.

Shaheen Sayed, Accenture's Technology Lead in the U.K. & Ireland, said: "The technology sector has a vital role to play in rebalancing the British economy and it's extremely encouraging to see the spread of technology skills as the job market bounces back from the pandemic.

"With more robotics and AI fuelling our industries, new technology and software engineering skills are required in every corner of the country. London's dominance as a centre of technology talent remains, but with growth in skills no longer being so concentrated in the South, it does indicate we are edging closer to closing the technology skills gap that has been historically prevalent in the U.K."

Allan King, North East Operations lead for Accenture in the UK, added: "A change in lifestyles and greater flexibility has allowed businesses across the country to discover exciting new pools of technology talent.

"Many organisations have invested in technology during the pandemic and will continue looking for professionals to help them embrace the next wave of change with more emerging technologies, such as cloud, extended reality, AI and quantum computing, and rapidly emerging trends such as the metaverse."