contents

Introduction – p.4

Business Analysis & Project Management – p.5

C# .Net Development – p.6

C/C++ Development – p.8

Contract – p.9

Client Server Regional – p.10

Data Development & Analysis – p.12

Executive Search – p.13

Front End & Web Development – p.14

Java Development – p.15

Open Source Development – p.16

Application & Infrastructure Support – p.17

QA & Testing – p.18

3

introduction

“With Quarter 2 drawing to a close, summer in full swing and the

uncertainty created in the run up to the general election last month

now over, a sense of normality can return. All indications suggest

that businesses remain confident in Q2, with a healthy sense of

optimism.

We had increased job vacancies across all technologies and

industry sectors, as well as seeing an increase in the average basic

salary across the board.

A continued shortage of skilled IT professionals across the country

has resulted in tough competition across all technologies but in

particular: Big Data, Cloud, IT Security, Mobile and Front End

Development. This has resulted in an unprecedented amount of

counter offers as well as candidates being drawn into bidding wars.

To counter this, consultant’s skills are really being put to the test and

having a real understanding of the motivations of your candidates

is crucial.

It feels like the engine that drives the UK job

market has turned up a gear as it accelerates

into Q3 with renewed hiring intentions.

At Client Server we view the rest of this

year with renewed optimism and hope

and look forward to what it brings.”

Nick Boulton, Director

4

business analysis &

project management

What’s in the news?

The PMP exam and PRINCE2 have been around since 1984 and 1989 respectively

and there are a lot of certified project managers out there but many have begun

calling into question the value of their certification, along with its accompanying cost,

particularly in light of the growth in Agile Product Owners and Scrum Masters

positions. It’s certainly a trend we’ve witnessed with clients who increasingly just want

someone who can manage projects and have the track-record to prove it. It will

therefore be interesting to see how the new version of PRINCE2 unveiled in London at

the start of July, the first new version since 2009, will fare with proponents saying that

PRINCE2 has always been Agile friendly and Agile enabled. Watch this space.

What’s hot in Business Analysis & Project Management?

According to the LinkedIn Most Promising Jobs of 2017 Product Managers ranked

No.5, and amongst our clients we are certainly seeing the demand for quality

candidates continue to grow unabated. The demand for Scrum masters also remains at

an all-time high.

Industry Anecdote

Here is a typical product management placement from Q2 at the lower end of the

salary spectrum for these roles:

2.1 degree from the University of Manchester and an MSc from University of London.

18 months as a Data Analyst with a further 18 months as an Agile Product Owner.

Placed within a major peer to peer (FinTech) lender in central London on £45k.

Industry Article

With the subject of the UK’s disappointing workforce productivity so prevalent in the

news, here’s a look at how Artificial Intelligence (AI) might come to our aid in the world

of Project Management.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/295264

5

C# .Net development

What’s in the news?

We have noticed a few of our clients beginning to introduce various AI and Machine

Learning Techniques to their stack, especially with the facilities available on Azure.

What’s hot in C# .Net Development?

As expected the rise of .Net Core is beginning to gather pace, with a number of

clients already looking for candidates with any sort of experience or interest in this

domain.

As people move across to distributed systems and start using various actor

frameworks, there is a greater desire for candidates who have any functional or

open source exposure too.

Industry Anecdote

London still has a major pull when it comes to attracting talent, be it nationally or

internationally. Despite all the naysayers and Brexit doom talk, over the past quarter

50% of our placements have relocated to London in pursuit of their next career

opportunity.

Industry Article

Evolution of Engineer - critical neurone mass and negative code value – Michal

Franc

C# — good career choice or not? – Jakub Chodounsky

What can I do in .NET Core that I can’t in the full .NET Framework?

6

“the engine that drives

the UK job market has

turned up a gear”

7

C/C++ development

What’s in the news?

Machine Learning/AI – Candidates seem to absolutely love this area at the moment.

In particular, those engineers from a C++ background are looking to move into this

funky area and are becoming more and more open to doing further research-based

tasks rather than hard-core programming.

Having seen a surge of clients from the finance industry come into play in Q2, Q3

seems to be the quarter for the tech companies out there (in C++ anyway!). We have

roles spanning all sorts of industries including Security, VFX, Broadcast Automation,

Static Analysis and not to forget the financial software vendors that are still looking

for top quality engineers.

What’s hot in C/C++ Development?

As always in this market the latest standards are getting more and more popular.

Over the last 3 months we have seen the number “17” appear more regularly on

candidates CV’s and, although very few (if any) companies are using it commercially,

I would advise candidates to look into it in their spare time.

Industry Anecdote

PhD student accepted a job at a leading financial software house based in London

where he was offered £65,000 p/annum. Very impressive seeing that he only had a

couple of years’ worth of commercial experience.

Industry Article

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2472079

8

contract recruitment

What’s in the news?

Obviously Brexit conversations are being watched with interest by most

clients and how this could / would / should affect what they are doing in

the next 6, 12, 18, 24 months is mentioned at almost every meeting.

What’s hot in Contract?

Scrum Masters seem to be hot on the agenda at the moment but it is

surprising how many different “forms” of Agile can be implemented and

the “new” roles of Agile Coach and “Scrum of Scrums” popping up!

The Devops market is still buoyant and it seems that most clients are

starting to come to a consensus about what a Devops person can, and

should, bring to their organisation as well as it becoming a “standard”

profile with an expectation of the skills and tools used.

Industry Articles

http://www.contractoruk.com/news/0013045it _contractor_demand_hits_its_highest_2017.html

http://www.contractoruk.com/news/0013084bid

_battle_ir35_smashes_funding_target.html

9

client server regional

What’s in the news?

Another busy quarter for CSR, we’ve grown by 3 consultants and now have over 40

live roles spanning Cambridge, Surrey, Hertfordshire, Oxford and the Midlands.

Demand is high for quality engineers and there’s lots of investment continuing in the

M4 Corridor and Cambridge, in particular.

What’s hot in Client Server Regional?

Full stack engineers and developers-in-test top our client’s wish lists. Engineers who

can be flexible and adaptable in their approach represent excellent value for

money as tech firms continue to move toward highly agile, DevOps style software

delivery models.

Industry Anecdote

We had a candidate arrive from Germany on a Tuesday, complete a telephone

interview that afternoon, face-to-face on the Wednesday and offered on the

Thursday – he was a graduate and joined a financial software house on £35,000 in

Surrey.

Industry Article

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/business/technology/how-arm-plans-enable-

trillion-13213477

10

“…businesses remain

confident in Q2, with a

healthy sense of optimism.”

11

data development &

analysis

What’s in the news?

IBM and Hortonworks announced an extended partnership across their DSX and

HDP tools across Hadoop.

SAP CRM is to merge (in future release) with SAP HANA.

Oracle’s profits were up 20% due to their cloud offering being taken up by large

firms such as AT&T.

22 banks have joined Swift’s Blockchain trial for cross-border reconciliation.

What’s hot in Data Development & Analysis?

Moves towards open source, cloud and Big Data technologies continue. The majority

of new, start up “tech-focussed” companies are using tools such as Hadoop and

MongoDB – more flexible and much cheaper than “traditional” tools such as Oracle

and SQL Server.

The push towards Agile and TDD development continues to change the DBA’s role

from “building databases” to “building data services” – DevOps, engineering and

more development-like skills are becoming more and more desirable.

Industry Anecdote

SQL Server BI developer with ~6 years’ experience at Rackspace was placed in an

investment management firm for £55K (base) – continuing a trend of industry

experience not being the key; technical knowledge and ability is.

Industry Article

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/big-4-accounting-firms-are-experimenting-with-

blockchain-and-bitcoin-cm812018

http://legmannews.com/global-hadoop-market-set-for-rapid-growth-to-reach-usd-

87-14-billion-by-2022/

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/05/oracle-riding-cloud-to-all-time-highs-above-

dotcom-bubble-levels.html

http://www.eweek.com/cloud/microsoft-spins-up-more-azure-cloud-services-in-the-

uk

12

executive search

What’s in the news?

Q2 has been Executive Search’s strongest quarter since its inception in November

2015, and the revenue pipeline for Q3 and 4 is already looking to increase on this.

It is a buoyant market for the search division.

GDPR is high on the agenda of every organisation that is operating within the EU.

Coming into effect from 25th May 2018. Companies are ensuring that they meet

these requirements with Data, both personal and sensitive.

Distributed Ledger technology is being widely researched and put to use in different

industries, MedTech, RegTech, InsurTech, FinTech. Leadership and Executive talent

needs to keep up and have a handle on the best talent and successful early

adopters in these markets.

What’s hot in Executive Search?

Crypto Currencies are hot right now. There is so much noise in the marketplace with

the current top 2, Bitcoin and Ethereum. Crypto currencies have been particularly

volatile in the last 6 weeks with huge swings on a weekly basis. There has been a

rapid expansion of ICO’s (Initial Coin Offerings) to fund new start-ups.

Industry Anecdote

We placed a CIO from a large central government organisation into a leading

Charity. The selected candidate has TOGAF, ITIL, MBA, BSc, MSc and PHD

credentials. Also recognised by Gartner and part of the CIO Academy.

Industry Article

Overview of GDPR - https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-

reform/overview-of-the-gdpr/

13

front end & web

development

What’s in the news?

We’re starting to see more individuals transitioning from contracting and start

looking for permanent positions. This seems to be due to regulations which

are being imposed and that most companies want to invest in their

development talent for the long term.

What’s hot in Front End & Web Development?

VueJS seems to be more popular, with businesses preferring its speed and

light weightiness. Our very own Calum Page predicted its rise in power

towards the beginning of the year - https://www.client-

server.com/blog/2017/01/front-end-and-web-development-technology-

trends

Industry Anecdote

An experienced Wed Developer who works closely with the design team (

and will act as a link between both teams) was placed at a leading e-

commerce business on a base salary of £85k.

Industry Article

JavaScript – taking over the world…

https://thenewstack.io/open-source-profile-mikeal-rogers-node-js/

14

java development

What’s in the news?

London remains Europe’s leading hub for technology according to the Mayor of

London’s agency, London & Partners. They calculate a total of £4.5 billion invested

by private equity firms into London’s tech sector in the first half of this year, with

venture capital contributing a further £1.1 billion over the same time period.

However, whilst easy access to capital continues to encourage rapid growth in the

sector, the lack of suitable talent is starting to pinch. The number of Java

candidates currently considering relocating to London from other areas of the EU is

at the lowest point we can remember in the last five years, exacerbating the long

running shortage of skilled workers to support the sectors growth.

What’s hot in Java Development?

IoT – Manufacturers are focussing on interoperability between systems and new

smart-home devices are focussing on WiFi to maximise compatibility, this may be

the year that IoT becomes mainstream.

Java 9 – Should have general availability by the 27th July.

Kafka – It seems to be gaining even more momentum and has become several of

our clients’ technology of choice for distributed applications.

Industry Anecdote

This quarter we placed a candidate that we have worked with as both a candidate

and client previously. 5 years ago, we placed him as a Senior Developer with a

start-up in which he progressed into a Development Manager. He then took a

significant basic salary pay cut to join an early stage start-up as CTO and,

although things didn’t work out, he has been able to recently secure, through Client

Server, a new role as Development Manager with one of our biggest brand clients

with a pay rise.

Industry Article

https://www.freelancinggig.com/blog/2017/01/25/java-9-ready-launch-cool-features/

15

open source

development

What’s in the news?

We have seen a continued trend in demand for OOP PHP developers using modern

MVC frameworks, however niche frameworks like Magneto remain a contract-heavy

market.

Ruby still one of the in-demand skills, however the lack of developers make them still

one of the highest earning developers, whilst Golang continues to grow in popularity

with Microservices/containers.

What’s hot in Open Source Development?

Python is continuing to pick up popularity along with big data/open source

frameworks such as Pandas, Apache Spark and TensorFlow.

In mobile markets Swift is rapidly replacing Objective-C as the go-to technology for

iOS. Android is increasing in popularity over iOS however there also seems to be a

rise in cross-device/cross-platform frameworks such as Firebase and React Native.

Industry Anecdote

Current graduate expecting a 1st class degree in BSc Computer Science with 1 year

industry experience developing with Ruby/Golang joined a tech start-up as a GO

developer on £45k.

Industry Article

Google Directory increases the search-ability of its open source offerings and has

open sourced TensorFlow training tools:

https://opensource.com/article/17/4/news-april-1

16

application &

infrastructure support

What’s in the news?

Even with clients creating diversity and gender equality recruitment campaigns there

still seems to be a worryingly low figure of females in the technology space at the

moment with no real sign of that dramatically changing any time soon. Here’s an

article from the Recruiting Times that makes for some sobering reading.

http://recruitingtimes.org/recruitment-and-hr-technology-news/19771/tech-industry-

shocking-state-gender-pay-disparity/

What’s hot in Application & Infrastructure Support?

Security appears to be the ongoing trend at the moment, with a clear demand for

Security Engineers. More and more clients are creating new Information or Cyber

Security divisions from scratch, but there also seems to be a new demand for typical

Infrastructure Engineers to have some knowledge within security, creating a crossover

and bringing security into the daily routine of your typical Support Engineer.

Industry Anecdote

Candidate demand is high at the moment; they have lots of options, not just out in the

market place but also at their current employers. There seems to be more counter

offers happening and employers doing all they can not to lose their best employees.

We had an example recently of a candidate who worked for a financial firm on a

basic of £50k. We got him an offer of £55k which is what he was looking for and his

current employer made a counter off of £70k to keep him. It just goes to show what

some companies are willing to do to secure the best on the market.

Industry Article

https://www.informationsecuritybuzz.com/news/tripwire-survey-75-percent-security-

professionals-dont-believe-buying-available-security-tools-fully-protect-organisations/

17

qa & testing

What’s in the news?

There has been a large volume of graduate and junior QA hiring, to ease the burden

on QA teams and in the hope of driving more technical testing. This increase also

allows businesses to speed up their hiring process, rather than looking for more

experienced automation/dev-in-test profiles.

Mobile Automation – for businesses where their mobile offering is prevalent, more

and more are using Calabash and programming languages such as Ruby to automate

their testing.

What’s hot in QA & Testing?

Python is regularly being used to write automation frameworks/scripts.

Robot Framework is a particularly popular automation framework having been

adopted by a number of tech businesses.

Counter offers are becoming slightly more common in the QA space, especially as the

level of technical expertise increases. We recently had a Python automation QA

offered a 100% pay rise (and promotion) to stay in his current role – this is of course

not common place but still a reflection of how valuable strong technical testers are to

their employer.

Industry Anecdote

18 months Developer in Test working in Fintech, placed at a small real-time market

data provider at £40k base.

Industry Article

http://www.itworldcanada.com/article/is-quality-assurance-holding-back-your-agile-development-efforts/394505

18

https://www.client-server.com

020 7090 2500 (London)

01372 476 500 (Surrey)

info@client-server.com

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