Insights From Our 2021 .Net Developer Report

What a year 2020 was! Although the pandemic halted some companies' hiring plans, we still helped lots of organisations scale their teams and developers find new roles.

The information in this 2021 .NET Developer Report is based on data collected through our .NET survey completed by highly relevant developers on our database, the latest LinkedIn Insights data, data from our 2020 placements, and salary ranges provided by our current partners that include some of the best technology-driven businesses across the UK. 

What’s the current state of the .NET talent pool in the UK?

There are 31.3k professionals in the Software Developer talent pool with .NET & C# experience in the UK on LinkedIn.  88% of these identify as men and 12% identify as women.

It definitely seems like UK developers are becoming more full-stack even if their job title doesn’t state it with many organisations requiring .NET developers to have front end skills. 

We also saw a 48% 1y growth in .NET Core, a 44% increase in React, and a 38% increase in Microservices.

On average, .NET Developers decide to move companies to pursue a new job after 1.5 years, highlighting the importance of retaining good talent.

Overall 89% of developers were happy with the tech they use. 80% of respondents also said that their companies had moved into the cloud. Azure was the top choice in cloud platforms, closely followed by AWS. 9.8% of respondents used private cloud platforms while none used GCP.

To find out more about which universities are producing this talent click here.

What does this talent earn?

The demand for talent within .NET remained high throughout 2020 despite the pandemic. Similar to last year, we saw higher salaries being offered to candidates with knowledge and experience of cloud and DevOps tools.

We have also noticed that more organisations are looking for .NET Developers with some experience with front end technologies and are paying them more.

Thankfully, we have found that organisations aren’t trying to pay their developers less as they are no longer commuting.  For more salary insights check out the full report.

What are the factors causing Developers to look for a new job?​
Where is this talent located?

As expected, London is where the majority of developers reside. We are seeing an increase of developers based in cities such as Hove, Lincoln, and Leicester. Hiring demand across London, Manchester, Bristol and Leeds remains very high.

The increase in more fully remote roles has meant that individuals can be based across the UK. The organisations that are open to more remote or fully remote are the ones who are securing more talent.

Remote Working is key in retaining .NET talent

Remote working is definitely here to stay, with an overwhelming 68.2% of developers saying they wouldn't accept a new job that didn't offer flexi-time and/or remote working. This is up from 45% in last year's survey.

Pre-Covid, we saw the majority of companies allowing developers to work remotely 1- 3 days a week. 67.3% said their employers will continue to offer remote working while 29.1% of respondents said they didn't know if their employers would allow them to carry on working remotely. We find this worrying considering it has become such a deciding factor for developers. To view more benefits, click here.

 What do Developers look for in new employers?

• Openness to innovation
• Focus on quality
• Challenging the team
• Prioritising people