5 ms·

Is this article down playing the effects of Brexit a little? I used to work in Silicon Roundabout and now I live in Paris, I know plenty of developers who've mo

by erdo 5y ago

Is this article down playing the effects of Brexit a little? I used to work in Silicon Roundabout and now I live in Paris, I know plenty of developers who've moved out of the UK because of Brexit, but none who have moved to the UK since Brexit was finalised. It must be getting harder and harder for London based startups to find a dev team

walshemj 5y ago
Maybe fintec startups want to be closer to the city
- jen20 5y ago
  You really can't get much closer without being _in_ the city...
  - walshemj 5y ago
    Ah sorry I forgot I meant the City of London - not London the City
    - handelaar 5y ago
      Old Street roundabout is 620 yards away from the City of London boundary
      - jen20 5y ago
        Yes, that’s what I meant. It’s as close to the City of London as one could realistically be without being inside.
hughhopkins 5y ago
+1 It is but Brexit also coincided with the pandemic which led to a massive spike in remote working so it's quite hard to tell the extend until the dust settles.
tmitchel2 5y ago
I think the article was quite balanced. If anything the tech scene is better since Brexit but I suspect that's in large part to the pandemic. However, if you worked for one of the faultering European investment banks then perhaps you would disagree. I personally doubt the government's involvement made any difference to Silicon roundabout whatsoever. It was already well known as our tech hub in those days and the rents were low enough to attract creatives. It was also a matter of time before it became more gentrified and property value 'literally' doubled.
- erdo 5y ago
  I think the tech jobs market in London is still better than in Paris for what I do, so possibly we agree? (I left the UK in spite of that not because of it). Depends what you mean by tech scene being better, if it's a shortage of tech workers, it's better for tech workers, and it's worse for people looking for tech workers - which eventually affects the decisions about where to base a team. But like another commenter said, remote work changes these calculations. To make it even more difficult to parse, we also had IR35 reform in the same period! Edit:clarity
- aqualinux 5y ago
  "If anything the tech scene is better since Brexit but I suspect that's in large part to the pandemic" Tech investment in London was growing after the Brexit vote and before the start of the pandemic
codeduck 5y ago
It's not just start ups who are struggling.
- nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago
  I don't think the struggle is there as the salaries did not start growing yet.
Nextgrid 5y ago
> It must be getting harder and harder for London based startups to find a dev team The market has stabilized and the salaries demanded seem to exceed what typical "growth and engagement" startup crap is willing to pay, where as before there seemed to be a surplus of talent happy to take these lower wages. But it's not hard to hire if you have a sustainable business that can afford to pay good wages. When someone complains to me how hard it is to hire I always talk about this magical thing called "money" and where if you put more of it on the table you'll magically get more candidates in the next day. But instead they still focus on pool tables and "culture". It could also be that the startup market is saturated and the "growth and engagement" bubble is popping? It used to be that any tech company that can show growth (even without a solid business plan to turn that into profit) could get insane amounts of money thrown at them, where as now every idea has been hashed and rehashed multiple times and you need an actual business plan addressing your predecessors' failures - simply boasting how many users you have on your sinking ship won't cut it (or at least not as much).
hogFeast 5y ago
It isn't. Funding in first half of 2021 was larger than the whole of 2020...and London in 2020 was already many multiples than Paris. Additionally, the UK has a large startup scene outside London. Manchester was roughly equal to Amsterdam in 2020, it grew significantly in 2021 and is likely going to approach top-tier mainland cities soon. Edinburgh and Belfast are growing fast. It isn't even close (tbh, the UK isn't really competing with the EU anymore...the EU is just so far behind). Btw, the reason why people have moved out of Silicon Roundabout is the same reason banks moved out of Canary Wharf. Rents too high, office space not growing fast enough (Google moved into Holborn, outgrew that, moved to Victoria, outgrew that, and is now building a huge new office in King's Cross). VC funding is up something like 15x since the Roundabout was created, the growth was just too rapid for such a small area.

by erdo 5y ago

walshemj 5y ago

Maybe fintec startups want to be closer to the city

jen20 5y ago
You really can't get much closer without being _in_ the city...
- walshemj 5y ago
  Ah sorry I forgot I meant the City of London - not London the City
  - handelaar 5y ago
    Old Street roundabout is 620 yards away from the City of London boundary
    - jen20 5y ago
      Yes, that’s what I meant. It’s as close to the City of London as one could realistically be without being inside.

hughhopkins 5y ago

+1 It is but Brexit also coincided with the pandemic which led to a massive spike in remote working so it's quite hard to tell the extend until the dust settles.

tmitchel2 5y ago

I think the article was quite balanced. If anything the tech scene is better since Brexit but I suspect that's in large part to the pandemic. However, if you worked for one of the faultering European investment banks then perhaps you would disagree. I personally doubt the government's involvement made any difference to Silicon roundabout whatsoever. It was already well known as our tech hub in those days and the rents were low enough to attract creatives. It was also a matter of time before it became more gentrified and property value 'literally' doubled.

erdo 5y ago
I think the tech jobs market in London is still better than in Paris for what I do, so possibly we agree? (I left the UK in spite of that not because of it). Depends what you mean by tech scene being better, if it's a shortage of tech workers, it's better for tech workers, and it's worse for people looking for tech workers - which eventually affects the decisions about where to base a team. But like another commenter said, remote work changes these calculations. To make it even more difficult to parse, we also had IR35 reform in the same period! Edit:clarity
aqualinux 5y ago
"If anything the tech scene is better since Brexit but I suspect that's in large part to the pandemic" Tech investment in London was growing after the Brexit vote and before the start of the pandemic

codeduck 5y ago

It's not just start ups who are struggling.

nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago
I don't think the struggle is there as the salaries did not start growing yet.

Nextgrid 5y ago

> It must be getting harder and harder for London based startups to find a dev team The market has stabilized and the salaries demanded seem to exceed what typical "growth and engagement" startup crap is willing to pay, where as before there seemed to be a surplus of talent happy to take these lower wages. But it's not hard to hire if you have a sustainable business that can afford to pay good wages. When someone complains to me how hard it is to hire I always talk about this magical thing called "money" and where if you put more of it on the table you'll magically get more candidates in the next day. But instead they still focus on pool tables and "culture". It could also be that the startup market is saturated and the "growth and engagement" bubble is popping? It used to be that any tech company that can show growth (even without a solid business plan to turn that into profit) could get insane amounts of money thrown at them, where as now every idea has been hashed and rehashed multiple times and you need an actual business plan addressing your predecessors' failures - simply boasting how many users you have on your sinking ship won't cut it (or at least not as much).

hogFeast 5y ago

It isn't. Funding in first half of 2021 was larger than the whole of 2020...and London in 2020 was already many multiples than Paris. Additionally, the UK has a large startup scene outside London. Manchester was roughly equal to Amsterdam in 2020, it grew significantly in 2021 and is likely going to approach top-tier mainland cities soon. Edinburgh and Belfast are growing fast. It isn't even close (tbh, the UK isn't really competing with the EU anymore...the EU is just so far behind). Btw, the reason why people have moved out of Silicon Roundabout is the same reason banks moved out of Canary Wharf. Rents too high, office space not growing fast enough (Google moved into Holborn, outgrew that, moved to Victoria, outgrew that, and is now building a huge new office in King's Cross). VC funding is up something like 15x since the Roundabout was created, the growth was just too rapid for such a small area.