Top tech stats: Tech salaries, UK adult’s smartphone habits & 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 smartphone usage, cloud migration, digital tools within the workplace and tech employee salaries.
Smartphones
A survey of 2,000 UK adults found UK adults spend 60 hours a year looking at a smartphone first thing in the morning or last thing at night.
Commissioned by Project M, the research also revealed that 18-34 year olds spend more than two days of the year (53 hours) reading showbiz or celebrity news via their smartphone. This is above the national average of 27 hours.
Similarly, the survey discovered Millennials are a vain bunch, spending over two days of the year taking selfies or checking their appearance with a smartphone. This adds up to a total of 5 months across their adult life.
Project M’s research also found the average adult spends 30 minutes a week, or 26 hours a year, using their smartphone on the loo.
Sean McNicholas, CEO of Project M, commented on the findings: “It is no secret that people are on their mobile device nearly every hour of every day, but now we can see how integrated smartphones really are within our day-to-day activities.”
Cloud migration
Agilisys’ 2016 Cloud Adoption Survey found 36% of 180 respondents from a variety of organisations claimed there were no concrete plans to migrate to the cloud.
Confusion and uncertainty about cloud adoption were cited as the main reasons that public sector organisations struggle with moving to the cloud. Data, compliance and security were also listed as significant obstacles and areas of concern.
For those who were considering migrating to the cloud, cost was found to be the biggest driver, and current infrastructure agreements coming to end was quoted as the second most important reason for considering cloud adoption.
Almost 60% of respondents acknowledged that cloud adoption would help to reduce on-site maintenance and ICT support requirements.
Sean Grimes, IT services director at Agilisys, said: “While the report shows that adoption of Cloud services is under way in the public sector, some organisations have concerns about their capability to manage compliance and regulation within the cloud as well as how to transform, migrate and operate services in this new environment.”
Digital tools
A study by Sungard Availability Services found that, when attempting to attract and retain talent, 76% of UK workers consider access to the latest digital tools crucial.
Some 33% admitted they would be embarrassed to work in an organisation without the latest digital tools, and 21% of UK employees have left a job because of the lack of tools necessary to remain competitive within their industry.
However, many are struggling to fully utilise digital tools, with 31% believing new tools are making their jobs more stressful, and 30% claiming it has made their role more difficult.
The study also found over half (52%) of UK employees cite having the right technical skills as the biggest challenge hindering digital transformation, with receiving the right training ranking second at 37%.
Some 34% of workers claimed they were not given enough or any training to get the most from the digital tools provided by their organisation, and nearly a quarter stated that the little training they do receive is not relevant or up to standard.
Keith Tilley, executive vice president of global sales and customer service management at Sungard Availability Services, commented: “Digital tools, from mobile working solutions through to cloud-based collaboration applications can be a game-changer for businesses and a powerful tool for growth.
“However, while deploying these tools may fall to the IT department, they must be adopted across the entire organisation in order to have any real or lasting impact.”
Salaries
The Robert Half 2017 Salary Guide indicated average starting salaries for professional roles have grown by a composite rate of 3.68% over the past three years.
Salaries for roles in finance and accounting, financial services, technology and administration are predicted to grow by an additional 2.1% in 2017.
Within tech, there is a need for new talent, and salaries for developers and junior developers are predicted to grow at 4.5% and 4.3% respectively. The salaries for mobile app developers are set to rise by 4.3%.