The figures, from job search engine Adzuna, come on the eve of tech job fair Silicon Milkroundabout, which is due to take place on 16-17 November.
While the number of positions is good news for graduates from technology-based courses, for businesses it is a significant challenge to hire staff who are both talented and can work in a close-knit startup environment. Furthermore, startups are not just competing among themselves, they also squabble with London's huge financial and retail companies for talent.
James Haycock, co-founder and managing director of east London-based product development firm Adaptive Lab told V3 his firm has to be "constantly hiring" in order to keep up. "It's competitive," he said. "One hundred yards down the road you've got banks which are paying 50 percent more, and there's actually not that many people who are great.
"There are smart people who have come out of university but they haven't got commercial experience, and there are people who are good but haven't been using best practices."
Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, added: "Technology is actually one of the least competitive job sectors in the UK according to Adzuna's data, with far more jobs available than applicants.
"The problem lies in the graduate IT market. British employers are often looking for candidates with specific coding skillsets – SQL, Ruby, HTML, Python – and are hesitant to take on new graduates without work experience in these areas," he said.
Hunter did however maintain that the news also shows UK tech is going through a boom phase, demonstrating the strength of the government's Tech City backing.
Nonetheless, Tech City acts as a good barometer for the tech industry as a whole, and reflects the need for businesses to take on technology apprentices, as well as grassroots-level computing education – both of which the government is currently moving towards.
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2307031/thousands-of-unfilled-tech-city-jobs-highlight-uk-skills-deficit
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