Recruitment remains the number one challenge facing London’s booming tech sector.
BusinessCloud has joined forces with Oscar Technology for event ‘The Tech Recruitment Timebomb’ to look at the problem and what can be done to tackle it.
The skills shortage has seen salaries spiral, with over a third of digital tech businesses reporting that candidates are wanting more money than they can afford to pay. However, the onus could well be on the companies to fix the problem.
Amina Ahmad is a freelance tech start-up consultant who has previously set up a retail banks innovation lab, is a recognised top 100 woman in FinTech and has co-founded a RegTech start-up in New York.
Currently she is head of data and product strategy at a FinTech in London and is leading an exciting proposal for a flagship national innovation collaboration centre for the third sector.
“It is often [the case] that candidates are unaware of what the benchmark salary is, because businesses do not openly share salary ranges more transparently,” she told BusinessCloud.
“They also have not had experience negotiating equity, or similar more tax efficient additional incentives, as part of their overall packages.”
The event on 10th October will discuss solutions to the issue, including getting more women into tech, creating training academies and turning to automation.
The start-ups who are more serious about their growth usually have a clear strategy in place, which values the different skillsets they will need to get them to achieve their goals, says Ahmad.
“Usually that means they will offer the equity or the salary that is reflective of their experience in the context of the existing team, because their own investors and advisors will have taught them that from their own experiences,” she concluded.
The event takes place on Wednesday 10th October from 5-7pm at etc.venues, The Hatton, 51 – 53 Hatton Garden, London, EC1N 8HN.
Joining her at the event is Eddie Lewis, co-founder, Final Stage; Chieu Cao, co-founder and CMO, Perkbox; Craig Brown, product marketing manager, Beamery; Vinous Ali, head of policy, techUK; Hannah Morris, commercial director, Vibe Tickets; Michele Trusolino, co-founder, Debut; Elaine Tyler, CEO, Venatrix; Simon Burckhardt, managing director, Vonage UK; Tim Boughton, CTO and joint founder, Mention Me; Rija Javed, CTO, MarketInvoice; Sam Mikkelsen, client solutions director, Oscar Technology; and Benedetta Arese Lucini, co-founder, Oval Money.