DH cant find an IT job

[usernamess]

We moved to the UK last year. DH spent 9 months in finding an software developer jobs, but still cant find one. He had several interviews in the first 3/4months referred by agents. After that, no more interviews.
What can he do to increase his chance of getting an IT in the UK? Is it DH's problem or overall the it's not easy to find an IT job now?

Thanks in advance for your opinions!

Hello,
I am also searching job past 1 month as my contract has ended, it job market has gone really quiet .I have never seen anything like this in the past 12 years. No calls from the agent, not many jobs to apply to. Hopefully things will improve soon.

What was the feedback from the interviews? Can he work on improving that?

But yes, it's not an easy job market for software developers atm, seems there are more people with the skills than jobs available.

Does he have the skills to pivot into other things, such as data management or digitalisation?

Has he tried the civil service?
My DH seems to be constantly trying to recruit for his department & they get hardly any decent candidates.
I guess a lot depends on his experience & qualifications, & what jobs he's going for.

I agree try the public sector. The best websites are:
https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi
https://www.jobsgopublic.com/
https://www.jobs.nhs.uk/candidate

Please be aware that the CS does have nationality requirements.

IT kniwledse is high demand as it is relevant to many roles. Seems odd he has had no success. Does he get interviews? Maybe try an agency (a lot IT specialists are on fixed term contracts) to get some experience and local networking.

In CS a lot of budgets for recruitment have been cut too.

My dh works in IT and his company has a recruitment freeze at the moment - and he says they’re not alone. This is probably not helping 😬

Is he making it clear on the applications that he has the right to work in the UK?

The market is terrible at the moment. It looks like there may be some movement starting so fingers crossed something will be along soon.

Does he have the right skills? Are they up to date?

Development roles should be out there still to some degree.

The market is not good at the moment. What is his skillset? There are still lots of jobs with the right skills - at the moment anything that is AI/ML or automation-related is very employable, so: python, numpy, keras, pandas, jupyter, hugging face on the AI side, ansible on the automation side, and kubernetes on the containerisation side. If he doesn't have modern development practices like agile and gitops on his CV then that too.

There are free or very low cost online training courses for all the above.

What kind of companies is he applying for? What kind of salary is he after? Is he based in London or elsewhere? Is he looking for onsite or remote, or hybrid?

There have been many layoffs and hiring freezes in big companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon etc. Added to this, there are relatively fewer roles in the UK (e.g. compared to Seattle, San Francisco). Pay is lower in the UK too, so it's harder to find 6-figure roles. I think the average salary for a Dev in the UK is £50,000. Many companies are pushing for at least hybrid, with the highest salaries in London and much much lower elsewhere.

Thanks for letting me know it's market looks like nowadays. Hope both of you can land a job soon!

Thanks for mentioning it, I will let him know to try civil services.

Thanks aakansa and propertylover for the websites, I will check them out.

Where is he looking? Dh is an IT engineer and was made redundant before Christmas. Since the new year's he's been utterly inundated with agents. We are in East Anglia and he's been looking for job in the 35-45k range.

We live in a university city with a big science/tech industry so theres a real shortage of decent IT staff. He's interviewing for a contract position tomorrow for £320 per day. And got a job offer for 35k today.

Can he see where in the country there are jobs? Can he tailor his CV to be more of a generalist?

No, you are helping and creating some hope to me:) Thanks for letting me know he is alone, hope companies will start unfreeze recruitment soon

Where in the country is he looking that should be.

Also many companies have their financial year end at the end of March, with recruitment freezes until then. New budgets start from the beginning of April

Have a look at things like Meet Ups covering anything software related as networking is key. Dh attends Dev Ops meet ups, google for your area.

The civil service is a very specific recruitment process though, which can prove tricky to succeed at. Many IT specialists there are employed on an external contract basis, not civil servants themselves.

He put it in the CV since January, mentioning no sponsorship required, however still no HR contacted him. I wonder if his CV has some problems so that made him filtered out by all companies HR.

Btw. may I ask for suggestion for any good CV scan websites or services? Thanks!

Take a look at NHS jobs - lots going on generally although I know that a lot of NHS trusts have recruitment freezes at the moment due to financial year end.

We are lining up our IT adverts now so we are ready to recruit as soon as the freeze is lifted.

Maybe make contact with any trusts local to you now to be made aware of any roles in pipelines.

Thanks puncher, I forwarded your reply to him and said he is learning Kubernetes now but your reply definitely widened his perspective, thanks indeed!

Congratulations on your hubby! We are living in Swindon, sadly there is not much IT jobs in Swindon. So he is looking for jobs in Bristol/Gloucester/Reading/London, however no luck at all.