New technology continues to bring growth to software engineering sector

Computers haven't been around for long. If you read one of the many history books about computing, you'll learn that before digital computers, computers were people, calculating things manually.

And that after digital computers, programming wasn't something that many people did. It was reserved for whoever had access to the mainframe and they wrote their programs on punchcards. Computing was in no way a ubiquitous, democratised activity—it was reserved for the few that could afford and maintain a room-sized machine. e.g. NASA.



Because programming required such painstaking planning in machine code and computers were slow, most programs were not that complex. Their value was in calculating things faster than a person could do by hand, which meant thousands of calculations in a minute rather than one calculation in a minute.

The birth of software engineering, therefore, did not come until programmers started solving problems that didn't have existing solutions, or were new ideas entirely.

Most people know or have heard about Bill Gates, Larry Page and Sergey Brin because they all created hugely successful products and companies.

By the start of the 1990s, Bill had become the PC industry’s ultimate kingmaker. Largely on the strength of Microsoft’s success, Gates amassed a huge paper fortune as the company’s largest individual shareholder. He became a paper billionaire in 1986, and within a decade his net worth had reached into the tens of billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford while both of them were finishing their PhD degrees in computer science. In 1996, the two collaborated on a research project where they created a search engine that listed results based on popularity. On September 4, 1998, after raising $1 million in capital from investors, family, and friends, the pair launched Google, Inc.

These technology innovators have created and brought unprecedented change, challenging the traditional ways of doing business, the way we communicate and the way we live.

There is no doubt that our future will be partially built through lines of software code – but who are these coders and software engineers?

Software Developers are at the forefront of progress and the backbone of innovation. It is critical to understand the demand for software engineers from both an employer and talent perspective. From a talent perspective, software engineers should be armed with data that helps them understand the skill sets needed to succeed. From a company’s talent pipeline outlook, knowing the market worth for their engineering roles could be the make or break from winning over a top candidate with a competitive salary offer.

In order to gain a deeper understanding of the demand for software engineers,  Brett Longden discusses further.

According to Hired’s 2019 State of Software Engineers report, data revealed that there is a growing demand for tech talent with expertise in blockchain and security. Demand for blockchain engineers increased by 517 percent year over year and demand for security engineers also increased by 132 percent. Demand for embedded software engineers also increased by 76 percent. As demand increases for these roles in a competitive hiring market, so have salaries.

The data also showed that candidates with experience in Go, the open source programming language were the most attractive by far. This is likely because the language is new, and supply is limited, which has made talent who possess this skill to stand out. When software developers were surveyed for the report to see which programming languages they used, only 7% of respondents said they primarily work with it. 

The report also found that the standard four-year degree is not so typical for software developers and engineers. 46% had a degree in computer science, one in five said they had taught themselves how to code. 13% said they had taken a hybrid approach by participating in software engineering programmes and coding boot camps through companies like General Assembly and Hack Reactor. 76% of boot camp graduates said it helped them prepare for a software engineering job.

Software engineers were also interested in pair programming, which is a development approach in which two programmers work together at one workstation. 48% said it increases their interest in working at a company if they were offered the opportunity to pair programme.

Technology will continue to evolve at a much faster pace than most humans will understand. Even if there are enough software developers in the world, the opportunities that new technology will bring are infinite. There will always be something new to learn, and that’s an exciting thing!

“Here at Redline, we are continuing to see the growing demand for software engineers,” says Brett. According to Information Age, embedded engineers can earn an average of £71,000, which is 145% more than the UK average salary of £29,000.  We work hard to ensure that we match the most talented candidates from the engineering and technology industry to the best jobs in the market. The profession of Software Engineering continues to need new professionals, giving engineers leverage when negotiating for a salary. No matter the area in which Software Engineers enter the field, they are sure to discover a variety of specialisations that fulfil their technical and managerial career aspirations.”

We are currently recruiting for candidates C++, C# and Java jobs. Browse our full range of Software Engineer jobs here.

For more information on Redline’s current software engineer jobs, please contact Brett Longden on 01582 878841 or email BLongden@RedlineGroup.com