IT Jobs Growth in Wales

Wales is known for its glorious landscapes, angelic voice choirs and its love of rugby, but it could soon become your next IT jobs destination too.

The capital city of Cardiff and its neighbouring cities Swansea and Newport have experienced a recent growth in IT and tech job opportunities thanks to investment and support from the Welsh Government and various career programmes.

Cardiff is one of the most affluent cities in the UK and is rapidly developing into a business hub, employing over 50,000 people within its digital, financial and public services.

Working in Wales

The majority of Wales’ business takes place in its capital city of Cardiff and houses many headquarters including Admiral Group, BBC Cyrmu Wales and fashion retailers Peacocks. Despite specialising in different industries, there is still a steady demand for individuals skilled in data analysis, web design and IT support to help sustain business operations.

Cardiff has an ambition to be one of Europe’s most successful cities and is currently undergoing a development phase to introduce a unique business centre that could become one of the most modern business developments in the UK. Central Square plans to construct several new offices that will house new businesses as well as existing companies. The aspiration is to brand Cardiff as a premier business location that will attract new businesses and investors as well as becoming an up and coming digital cluster of the UK and Europe.

Wales is a country with a lot of open space, filled with beautiful and stunning scenery and locations. However, it has less cities than England with the most popular towns and cities of Wales being Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, Bangor, Bridgend and Wrexham. Many of the other areas of Wales, or the Valleys as they're commonly known as, tend to consist of small towns and villages which may not have the same opportunities as the aforementioned towns and cities. Wales does have a well-connected rail network within the Southern region so despite the lack of IT job opportunities in the smaller towns, commuting into Cardiff or Swansea isn't that much of an issue.

Future IT Job Growth of Wales

Wales is still a growing economy and the recent investment from the Welsh Government via funding programmes like Jobs Growth Wales and The Enterprise Support Programme could see it's digital economy continue to grow and develop. Both programmes encourage students and ambitious people to start their own companies and increase entrepreneurship within Wales.

The idea is to help students develop their entrepreneurial effectiveness and support their journey of self-development by building their own start-up business. Wales has already seen a number of rising start-up companies represent the tech sector, including photo printing company, Pwinty and e-commerce business, Veeqo. Below is a video of the Enterprise Support Programme to showcase examples of its development.

The digital sector is a big employer in Wales and has become a key driver of economic output, according to a report from Tech Nation 2016. The specialist skills that saw the highest employment rate were cyber-security and software development. Cardiff and Swansea were also featured in the UK’s top 10 clusters for digital salary growth too.

Game development in Wales is another sector that is finding its feet thanks to the emergence of gaming networks such as Games Wales. Ian Thomas, Chair of Games Wales gave us his outlook on the current game development scene of Wales.

“The Welsh games industry has grown dramatically over the last five years, from next-to-nothing to being hailed as one of the up-and-coming games hubs of the UK. We're still a very new industry here; our workforce is young, extremely keen and very inventive, making use of the latest tools and technology to produce mobile, VR, console and handheld games. And there's a great social scene.

In the next five years we'd hope to see some of the existing companies grow in size - but not too big, there's a lot to be said for being small and agile. And we see them being joined by a load of new start-ups, and that existing media companies will branch out into the industry, working in collaboration on projects that cross boundaries. Wales is a hive of activity for the creative industries, and we hope to see games become as much a part of that as film or television. “

IT Salaries in Wales

Like most places, working in industrial cities like Cardiff and Swansea are likely to pay more than working in the more remote parts of Wales. Here is a comparison of how much IT employees are earning in different parts of Wales.

All information and figures are provided by Technojobs data.