7 KEY TECH HIRING TRENDS FOR 2022

One of the topics we are frequently asked about by our customers surrounds trends in hiring technology talent, specifically software engineers and developers.

Each year, companies with significant tech talent audience data are conducting research and producing deep and meaningful insights on factors such as the labor market, talent demographics and the working experience.

In March 2022, Radancy Labs reviewed several independent and authoritative third-party reports, curated the insights, and re-organized them into common themes to help drive strategic, insight-led conversations with our customers. Below are the top findings from our review.

1. A more inclusive company culture is fundamental to attracting, developing and retaining tech talent from under-represented groups, especially women in tech.

An Accenture study found that a less-inclusive culture is one of the main reasons women leave the tech industry at a 45% higher rate than men, and that many from under-represented groups do not progress from college into a tech career.

“Just 21% of women say it’s easy to thrive in tech vs 45% of senior HR leaders.”

Accenture also found a disconnect between what women experience in their jobs and what senior HR leaders believe about their organizations. Just 21% of women say it’s easy to thrive in tech vs 45% of senior HR leaders.

Employers should consider how they can support underrepresented groups early on in their tech education.

2. Most developers don’t work for big tech firms.

In fact, over 80% of developers work for organizations with fewer than 5,000 employees. With most permanent developers working for smaller and mid-sized organizations, and the continued increase in developers moving to self-employed /contractor status, larger employers will need to work even harder to attract tech talent directly.

3. Brand awareness and pipelining of early talent needs to start very early.

Over two thirds of developers learned to code before they were 18. And most developers have been coding for less than 10 years. Generating awareness and brand affinity amongst those early in their career will be critical to talent pipelining for the future.

Employers should also consider how much experience they ask for in job ads so they don’t eliminate those who could potentially do the job. It’s a good idea to avoid asking for a specific number of years’ experience altogether, which can also be considered discriminating against age in some countries.

4. Developers care most about salary, culture and flexible working (which includes most wanting to work fully or primarily remote).

As salary is such a critical decision factor, it is vital employers publish the salary range on job ads to optimize conversions.

As the job details pages will be the most visited type of page, and often the first entry point on your careers site, they should work hard to pull the key decision-making content into an immersive job ad experience; visualizing key benefits, highlighting the flexible working options, featuring the tech stack they’ll be working with, etc. Company culture should also be conveyed through the voice of employees to build trust through authenticity, and ideally be contextually added to job details pages.

“The more developers work remotely, the happier they are, with those who have been asked to return to the office far less content.”

It is essential to both the attraction and retention of tech talent that they’re given the option to work flexibly, with ‘mainly remote’ being the preference for over 70% of developers. According to a CoderPad survey, “The more developers work remotely, the happier they are, with those who have been asked to return to the office far less content.” 

Lack of economic opportunity and unemployment, public health issues and global warming are the top three problems software engineers are most passionate about solving with their coding skills. Employers should communicate their purpose clearly on the careers site, ensuring it is contextually surfaced on any tech job pages.

5. Skills and experience trump academic credentials.

The percentage of recruiters who hire from non-academic backgrounds has increased as the market has tightened further. And with around only half of developers holding a relevant higher education qualification, employers need to think carefully about what ‘qualifications’ they’re asking for to ensure they’re not eliminating large proportions of the talent market.

Developers are also extremely passionate about learning, with many focusing on the skills they want to develop. And almost two thirds want a learning and development budget. This is driving an emerging ‘pay-for-skills’ compensation model to reward those with more desirable skills, which employers may need to consider in their total compensation offering.

6. Tech employers need to capitalize on increasing international recruitment opportunities.

The US is currently the most lucrative country for developers, with 44% making over $100K or more. However, by contrast in India, over 75% make less than $20K a year.

Salaries in many emerging markets are significantly lower than in more established ones. 50% of developers are looking for jobs internationally and 40% of recruiters are sourcing internationally. And international employment barriers are coming down, driven by the demand for remote working and independent companies emerging to facilitate cross-border employment.

Now is the time for employers to expand, or even remove, their geographical recruitment boundaries in what is becoming a remote-first tech talent market.

7. Key areas of investment for employers in 2022 are in candidate experience, retention and expanding the talent pool.

The percentage of recruiters hiring 201-500 has more than doubled since 2021 and those hiring over 500 has increased 50%. This increased demand, coupled with a tight talent market, is partially responsible for over half of recruiting budgets increasing in 2022.

Candidate experience is the number one priority for employers in 2022, with talent retention being a close second. Expanding the talent pool and talent diversity are also a big focus, as we’ve seen with more recruiters open to hiring developers from non-academic backgrounds.

When it comes to candidate experience, employers need to evaluate and optimize every touchpoint, from initial attraction right through to the employee experience.

Just over half of engineers say they’re happy in their role, but that means nearly half are not. And with nearly four in five saying they’ll unlikely be with the same employer in the next two years, employers can expect a tough challenge on their hands.

This presents both an opportunity and a risk to employers. It means that talent is not impossible to attract (with the right proposition, targeting and optimized touchpoints), but employers should also be aware that resignations within the next two years are very likely, and therefore employee engagement and retention strategies should be front of mind.

If you would like to discuss any of these highlights or would like a copy of our final curated report, please connect with Nathan Perrott on LinkedIn and he’ll be more than happy to help.

If you would like to discuss how Radancy can help you transform your tech talent acquisition with our unified platform, data and expertise, please connect with us at radancy.com/contact.

Notes about the reviewed research

The research conducted by each organization is insightful and in most cases covers a very large sample audience. As with any research, nuances must be considered, such as balances and biases in research participants, for example with demographics breakdown and geographical differences. 

Sources reviewed:

• Stack Overflow 2021 Developer Survey
• CodinGame & CoderPad Tech Hiring Survey 2022
• Mercer Global Talent Trends Study: Tech
• Hired State of Software Engineers 2021 (please note that the 2022 report was recently published after this research closed)
• Hackajob What Do Tech Talent Want in 2021?
• Accenture and Girls Who Code: 5 Strategies to Keep Women in Tech