Welcome to our quarterly update for Autumn 2021! We hope you had a relaxing Easter long weekend and enjoyed the last of the warm weather before the cooler temperatures well and truly set in. It’s been an extremely busy quarter here at Sourced, with really strong growth in the permanent market both in Christchurch and Auckland. Contract opportunities also continue to bubble along, however, we face the hurdle of resourcing and relying wholly on domestic candidates, so suffice to say it’s a challenging time! In this quarterly update, we look at who’s who in the zoo, market activity, what to expect in the coming months, and provide a general overview of the ‘state of the tech recruitment sector’. General CommentsWe really hit the ground running upon returning from the Christmas holidays in January, with lots of clients ready to hire and others preparing to do so. Permanent recruitment has ruled, with a mix of new roles, along with hiring for attrition. It’s been great to see that those hired on fixed-term contracts during the challenging period last year have all moved into permanent positions with their employers, again reflecting the rebound of the 2020 market. Our recruitment activity, rather than coming from just one or two key clients, has been from a very large number of organisations recruiting across Christchurch and Auckland. This recruitment has been in response to projects coming on stream, general business confidence, growth and attrition.While borders remain closed, our biggest challenge will be continuing to try to grow the candidate market by bringing through graduates and juniors into more experienced roles, attracting candidates from other regions to Canterbury, and picking up the smaller number of local candidates re-entering the market for various reasons. We have talked a lot in the past about it, but we really do play heavily in the international market, with a significant number of our recruits (often over 60%) being new to New Zealand, returning Kiwis, or travellers to the country on working holiday visas.From a contract perspective, as noted above, the level of demand for contract resource has held steady, with the predominant demand being in the BA, Product Ownership and Test spaces, as well as a small spike in Infrastructure Engineering/Support contracts. Contracts have tended to be reasonably contained, typically in the three- to six-month space and for specific, well-framed projects. Within Sourced WallsIt’s been a really busy time these last three months with barely time to stop and take stock. We recently introduced our newest member to the Sourced team, Archer – a very happy little Schnoodle who has well and truly captured the hearts of the team and visitors to the office. Archer enjoys greeting candidates and clients, playing with the other hounds that work in our great office space, and chewing cables. Feel free to say “hi” to him next time you’re in! Who’s in DemandIn terms of candidates in demand, from a permanent perspective, there has been a very broad demand for skills across Business Analysis, Product Ownership, Software Development and Test. Permanent Electronics Engineering and Infrastructure roles have been quieter than usual but a little busier on the contract side. In Auckland, our efforts have been entirely focussed on Native Android roles at various levels and R&D Engineering, with nowhere near the span of demand we are seeing in Christchurch. Our recruiting clients have tended to be looking for experience over Graduates/Juniors, and with a very strong bent towards the Software Development space and the supporting roles around this.Demand for Developers has been broadly across web and mobile, with a smaller than usual demand in the .Net space. BAs and Product Owners have been in very hot demand across both contract and permanent and this continues an ongoing theme we’ve seen over the past couple of years. ERP roles are down, with more general Software/Product Development leading the demand. BI/SQL has been another busy area, with both contract and permanent roles available at senior- and mid-levels.We are continuing to see a level of stability in the management/team leader space, with retention levels being very high, and little in the way of new positions being created. Graduate/Junior recruitment has been represented in small numbers, however, recruitment continues to be at the experienced intermediate-senior level on the whole.As mentioned, on the contracting side, this has been heavily geared towards Business Analysis as new projects gain traction and move through planning and approval processes. General Round-UpOverall, demand is outstripping supply, and we are experiencing a much busier than usual period with no signs of a slowdown. Growth is happening across the sector, retention levels are lower than usual, and so this is also driving activity. Contractors and permanent staff members are in demand, and this is for a mix of BAU and projects. Business confidence remains very high, while salary levels remain static.We look forward to keeping you abreast with how the year evolves!For further market insights or if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. In Case You Missed ItOver the last quarter, we’ve written some new blogs. You can find them below:3 Self-Care Ideas to Prioritise in 2021 Of the many lessons that came from 2020, the necessity of self-care is one of the most important – and often most underrated. With this in mind, here are three simple self-care ideas to put at the top of your priority list in 2021.Attracting and Retaining Women in Tech In today’s environment, tech companies need talented people more than ever, and top industry leaders recognise the impact a diverse workforce has on their ability to secure the best people, innovate and stay competitive. In honour of International Women’s Day, we explored data around women in tech from our semi-annual Sourced Report and provided three strategies to better attract and retain female in the sector. Learn more, here.
