Top tech stats: Bad tech experiences, search engine concerns and much more

Welcome to your round up of some of the past week’s most interesting surveys, statistics and reports relevant to those involved in the UK tech industry.

This week we bring you stats relating to poor experiences with in store technology, users’ privacy concerns over search engines, the increasing demand for big data professionals and much more.

In-store technology

Over six in 10 consumers have said they would choose one retailer over another based on their in-store technology experience.

That’s according to Fujitsu’s new study, ‘The Forgotten Shop Floor,’ which also found that 75% of consumers said Amazon or eBay would become their favourite high street store if they opened a physical shop.

Additionally, the report also found that eight in 10 spend more with retailers that have a better technology offering.

The report also highlighted some 41% of consumers experience poor in store technology ‘quite often’, ‘very often’ or ‘every time they go in store’.

Privacy concerns over search engines

A new study has found that privacy is the biggest concern among search engine users.

The research conducted by YouGov reveals that 53% of internet users would opt for a search engine that would guarantee privacy.

Additionally, some 46% of those polled said they would prefer an advert-free search engine.

The study showed that younger people were less concerned about being tracked with advertising, despite 40% of 18-34 year olds saying they would prefer to use a search engine that did not advertise to them.

Among 35-54 year olds, these figure rose to 47%.

Big data demand

Demand for big data IT professionals is on the rise.

According to Experis’ ‘Tech Cities Job Watch‘ report, the demand for these kind of professionals sore by 51.7% over the past year.

The report, which traced IT jobs advertised within big data, cloud, IT security, mobile and web development across 10 UK cities, also found that big data had become the highest paying of the five core areas.

Professionals working in this field, the report said, command the highest average salaries by far – £67,399 per annum for permanent roles and £528 per day for contractor roles, compared to £41,578 and £332 for web developers, who had the lowest rates of all.

Salford tops ranking for startup growth

According to data released by DueDil, Salford has been ranked as the number one hotspot for startup growth in the UK.

The data found that Salford produced 1,393 startups throughout Q1 2017, with the city experiencing a startup growth rate of 85.49% for the same period in 2016.

Leicester was ranked second, showing a startup growth of 34.45% year on year. Norwich, Liverpool and Oxford also made the top five.