The Best UK Cities for Technology Professionals

In England and Wales the technology industry posted more job vacancies in 2021 than the entirety of British businesses did in 2020, and nearly three million people took up jobs in the UK tech industry that year.

The industry appears to be flourishing despite a difficult economic climate, with a large number of people taking up tech roles in recent years. So, where exactly is the best place to be in the UK when working in tech?

Which are the best UK cities for technology professionals?

To answer this question, we analysed almost 500 advertised vacancies on the job-seeker website Indeed that were listed under ‘full-time’ and ‘technology occupations’. 

Once all the jobs had been collated, we scored and ranked them out of 100 based on the advertised salary,the average cost of living in that city and the number of jobs available.

Of course there are many personal factors that influence people’s decisions about where to live and work. But hopefully, this metric provides useful food for thought for those looking for jobs in the UK tech sector.

According to our research, the best city in the UK for technology professionals is Nottingham, with a score of 76. Here, the average wage for tech vacancies is £33,254 and the cost of living is around £1,200. 

This is followed by Sheffield with a score of 64 where the cost of living is relatively low and wages are above average.

Here is the full ranking of the best cities in the UK for technology professionals: 

1. Nottingham: 76

2. Sheffield: 64

3. Newcastle: 62

4. Coventry: 58

      = Manchester: 58

5. Leeds: 55

6. Bristol: 54

7. Glasgow: 53

8. York: 52

      = Milton Keynes: 52

9. Derby: 51

10. Leicester: 48

11. Edinburgh: 47

12. Gloucester: 45

13. Cambridge: 43

14. London: 39

15. Oxford: 35

Whilst London did have 104 technology jobs available, the advertised salaries started relatively low despite the cost of living being the highest in the UK.

Just below the capital city is Oxford. Like London, the ratio of salary to cost of living gives it a lower ranking.

The most in-demand tech jobs

According to jobtensor, the most in-demand tech jobs are software engineers, software developers, solution architects , systems engineers, support engineers, data engineers and full stack developers. 

We assessed the jobs that we collated from Indeed to identify which are the most required at the moment. The jobs that recur the most in our research are; administrators, managers, testers, analysts, technicians, engineers, specialists, developers and officers within the tech sphere.

There are also currently a large number of openings for interns and apprentices in IT, cybersecurity, cloud computing, software engineering and software development. 

Methodology: We scraped information from the job-seeker website Indeed that were listed under ‘full-time’, ‘technology occupations’ and ‘United Kingdom’. The 452 jobs were then analysed, scored and ranked based on the wages, cost of living and number of jobs available in each city.