Top tech stats: Global FinTech playing field, rising digital appetites 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 have statistics relating to the global status of FinTech hubs, consumers’ expectations of a digital future for business and problems with IT employment.

Global FinTech playing field

London ranks as one of the top hubs for launching and growing a FinTech startup, according to a new report by the Global FinTech Hubs Federation.

Launched at Innovate Finance’s Global Summit this week, ‘Connecting Global FinTech: Interim Hub Review 2017‘ reveals the UK capital earned among the strongest index performance scores for ease of creating FinTech startups out of 44 hubs from across the world.

The UK was also singled out as one of just five European FinTech hubs committed to a regulatory sandbox, and one of three which had signed co-operation agreements with other global regulators.

“The UK has long been a leader when it comes to FinTech and so it’s great to see our position is unchanged,” said Mark Boleat, policy chairman of the City of London Corporation.

He added: “With competition rising, it’s important for the UK to continue championing innovation whilst maintaining the right degree of regulation to see our FinTechs thrive. We are committed to strengthening FinTech in the UK and are hopeful we can continue to lead in this sector.”

Rising digital appetites

New research this week has shown that 88% of consumers now expect to complete financial transactions digitally.

The DocuSign study found 62% of the buying public no longer feel comfortable sending important documents in the post, while 59% view those businesses still utilising paper forms as outdated.

This news doesn’t appear to surprise today’s businesses either. Some 92% of firm-owners agreed their organisation could do more to go digital, with a lack of funding and the difficulties of modifying business infrastructure being the main reasons for the slow pace of change.

Scott Olrich, chief strategy and marketing officer at DocuSign, said: “Today’s consumers demand the ease, speed and convenience of doing business digitally, and if your organisation doesn’t, they will find a modern business that does.”

IT job-hunting challenges

UK independent job board CV-Library has discovered that almost three-quarters of IT workers don’t enjoy hunting for new employment.

A survey of 1,200 British IT workers saw 73% of respondents admit that they dislike searching for their next job.

Among the highest-ranked reasons for this disillusionment were lack of responses from recruiters (66%), lengthy application processes (54%), tailoring cover documents for different applications (51%) and the difficulty of finding work in local areas (27%).

“Looking for work can be extremely stressful,” Lee Biggins, CV-Library’s founder and managing director, said, “especially if you don’t have enough time to fill in application forms and update your CV.”

He stressed that while low response rates and other factors “can really knock your confidence”, applicants should stay vigilant: “It’s important to be patient in your job hunt and remember that it can take time – but it should be worth it in the long run once you’ve found your dream job!”

Brexit sentiment

A survey of 1000 UK SMEs, commissioned by cloud accountancy software Pandle, has revealed that 6 out of 10 companies are confident in the government’s ability to negotiate trade deals.

Additionally, the survey found that over one in three think Brexit will positively impact their business.

Despite this, almost half (47%) of SMEs in the UK feel they’re being rushed to prepare for Brexit, while 56% stated the government is doing enough to support them.

“It’s important that the Brexit negotiators keep SMEs top of mind during the talks,” said Lee Murphy, owner of Pandle. “SMEs are the lifeblood of the UK and Brexit could easily make or break some of these businesses, especially when considering the tariffs that the EU may place on imports and exports.”

IT buzzwords

According to recent research by CV-Library, IT workers are shunning the concept of a buzzword heavy environment entirely, with over 4 in 5 (84.8%) feeling that people only used buzzwords to sound intelligent.

The study, which surveyed 1,000 UK workers, found that 50% of workers in the industry felt that buzzwords were completely unnecessary in the workplace.

Alongside this, the survey also found that over half (54.3%) had particular buzzwords or phrases that they were sick of hearing in the workplace.