An insight into the Auckland tech hiring market for 2022

Over the past year, there has no doubt been a war on talent in New Zealand. A war to attract, engage and retain.?As organisations have focused on tech projects in the wake of COVID, the impacts of so much pent-up demand, and also our international borders being closed for so long, there has been a higher demand than ever for technology skillsets. Even though borders are opening, I do not see this demand easing; open borders will allow more talent to come into NZ, but it will also enable our current talent to follow opportunities overseas.?There are certainly valid concerns from businesses if emigrating talent could outweigh immigrating talent.

I do hope to see the government continue to support the tech sector through increased investment in developing domestic talent, and visa access to fill the skills gap.

Candidates are presently seeking:

• Flexibility - this is an expectation and not a perk.
• Competitive remuneration.
• Growth and L&D opportunities.

Businesses are looking for:

• Highly skilled individuals who will have immediate impact and provide relief for teams nearly at burn out.
• Experienced leaders who will scale and engage teams.

Hiring trends:

• Counteroffers are so common in this market that they have become ‘the norm’ and are to be expected in any recruitment process.
• Salary bandings have increased by at least $10K across all roles and industries in the tech and digital landscape.?Candidates achieving $20K - $30K salary increases when accepting new roles is frequent.
• Most candidates have several offers to choose from when considering an employer.

Skills in high demand are:

• Software development
• Business Analysis skills
• Senior Testing skills
• Data
• BI
• DevOps
• Architecture
• Project / Programme Management
• Change Management
• Transformational leadership

The year ahead

Organisations have been, and I believe will continue to entice candidates with greater flexibility, more annual leave, personal days, share options and increased parental leave. In fact, this is increasingly becoming standard expectation from candidates.

We are seeing incredibly buoyant financial services, telco, and utilities sectors in the Auckland market. Government sectors (often with capped salaries) and higher education (with no international students) are struggling to compete for permanent staff. We are seeing an increase in contracting across these areas.

Software/Product organisations continue to ramp up their internal recruitment teams as they look to hire hundreds of skilled software developers, architects, testers, and dev-ops professionals. Software Developer salaries continue to grow year-on-year despite organisations attempts to combat this with remote working policies and share options, however until the borders open, I do not foresee this trend easing at all. ?

With market conditions so strong, we are seeing a significant number of permanent employees enter the contracting market to take advantage of the higher rates. It is now entirely acceptable to have a four-week notice period for a contract, sometimes even longer.

On top of this, the cost of living is extremely high in NZ right now. Fuel is on the rise due to recent world events and reports are stating that prices could rise to $4 per litre – mammoth! Inflation is at an all-time high and although the government has made recent announcements to try and combat this, businesses need to be alert and aware if they want to attract and retain skilled candidates.

Check out our More Than Money Salary Guide for extra insights on the Auckland market - https://tinyurl.com/3ftsz8c4 ???????

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