The average salary for technology roles has hit £80,886 in Edinburgh - up 13.2% on last year - and £79,736 in Glasgow - up 17.3% on 2021.
This is according to the annual State of Tech Salaries report from recruiting marketplace Hired, which found a global increase in salaries across nearly all tech roles, driven primarily by the growth in salaries of experienced professionals.
While Hired data shows the number of companies seeking to hire remote junior-level talent has grown, local salaries for junior-level candidates have failed to grow as quickly as salaries for professionals with more years of experience.
Despite the growing appetite for remote positions, the 2022 average remote salaries in London are 3.6% less than salaries local to London – the lowest remote to local salaries percentage difference seen across all markets globally.
But as remote dominates as the preferred work model, remote salaries have continued to outpace local salaries - 15 out of 17 markets had higher remote salaries, up from 13 markets in 2021 - with remote roles paying approximately £2,540 more on average.
In terms of industries seeing the largest salary increases for UK-based roles, the entertainment industry has seen the largest growth, with a 17% increase in average salaries between 2020 and July 2021. Health is another high growth industry, that has shown a 9% increase in salaries in the same time period.
"The hiring climate this year has been full of contradictions and challenges," said Josh Brenner, chief executive at Hired. "We've seen climbing salaries, aggressive hiring, and layoffs – all at once.
"However, the hiring landscape remains competitive as companies innovate and diversify their teams through remote work."
The findings are based on the analysis of more than 907,000 interview requests over 47,000 active positions, through Hired’s marketplace from January 2019 through June 2022.
Hired also surveyed over 2,000 tech professionals on their salary, benefits and flexible work preferences.
The report also found that time to acquire tech candidates has slowed across the UK, as companies and jobseekers are taking more time to evaluate offers. In 2022, the time to acquire tech candidates is up to a 40-day average time to fill, up slightly from 39 days in 2021.
Engineering management roles still pay the highest among tech roles across the UK, with full-time jobs seeing an average salary of £113,358 - up from £107,205 in 2021.
The salary gap is also closing between start-ups and enterprise organisations. Salary levels at corporates - those with more than 300 employees - versus start-ups - with less than 300 employees - in the UK narrowed to the smallest pay difference to date since 2019, with corporates paying just 4.53% more on average (£84,061 vs £80,419).
As for working from home, when asked if they would be willing to return to the office, if it meant greater job security, more than half (54%) of candidates stated yes, but would start looking for other jobs with more flexible remote work options immediately.
Only a third of respondents would trade remote work for a fully in-person role with a higher salary.
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