by Caroline Morris

Wired Sussex

 

Working for Wired Sussex I’m at the heart of the local digital, media and technology hub.

It is my job to help our member companies find the right people with the right skills to grow their businesses. The digital sector is all about talent and it is one of the strengths of Brighton that talented people do want to be here. Most of the digital companies that Wired Sussex supports are small and many of them are start-ups.

They are driven by people who are passionate about creativity and their love of technology. But that doesn’t mean that they know how to draft a job description or what level of salary to pay, or that they have anyone in their company that does. That’s where I can help. So what has my work told me about the state of the employment market in digital in Brighton?

The Wired Sussex online Jobs Board is a good place to start. Over the past 12 months, it has seen a healthy 17% increase in jobs posted – 407 different local digital, media and technology companies advertised vacancies, with around 14 new businesses posting a vacancy each month. As the sector here develops and grows, we see individual companies maturing and expanding their employment needs and the wages they are prepared to pay for the right person.

The need to attract the right people is gradually pushing wage levels up too. A clear majority of roles on our site pay over £25,000 per annum now, which is probably a reasonable rate for someone early in their career. Of course, top-notch candidates can attract far more, though many of those people are hard to tempt from the rewards, both financial and otherwise, of the freelance lifestyle.

As the reputation of our digital cluster grows nationally, we see more people looking for jobs in the city – sign-ups for our online job alerts has increased by 27% over the past year. But people are not just tempted by the salary offer.

The large number of people who come to the city to go to university and then stay here after graduating should be one of Brighton’s economic strengths.

We have also worked with local digital businesses, helping them consider recruiting such recent graduates and are pleased that 259 graduate opportunities were advertised by us last year. At Wired Sussex we’re aware that securing the best and right talent is imperative, and so we’re on hand to offer our advice and support to the sector as well as help form new strategies for talent attraction to the area.

We know that digital in Brighton is thriving and is recognised nationally for what it is achieving. But we also know there is a lot more growth left in the sector and it is fresh talent which is key to that continued growth.