The headline

Anyone running a technology business in the North will have felt the squeeze of the past two years. Pipeline cycles lengthened, budgets tightened, and hiring decisions that would have taken a week in 2022 began to drag on for months. The latest KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs (April 2026) signals that the tide is turning and turning faster in the North than in most of the rest of England.

Permanent placements across the North of England climbed for a third straight month in April, hitting their highest level in nearly four years. The regional index landed at 53.3 against a UK-wide figure of 47.5, meaning the rest of the country (outside London) was still in contraction, while the North was firmly back in growth. For tech employers across Lancashire, Greater Manchester and the wider region, that’s a meaningful shift in the operating environment, one with direct implications for how you should be thinking about your 2026 hiring plan.

But the underlying picture is more nuanced than the headline suggests. The permanent market is opening up, while the contract market remains under pressure. Specialist tech skills remain hard to find. Tech-adjacent sales talent is in short supply. And salary inflation, while modest, is real for the right roles. Here’s what the data tells us, with a deliberate tech and IT lens.

Permanent IT Hiring – is on the UP – The demand is back, and the specialisms are scarce

The most important signal in the April data for technology businesses is that hiring momentum is rebuilding, but employer demand has narrowed. Recruiters explicitly identified C# developers as one of the categories in shortest supply on a permanent basis across the North, and IT/computing skills more broadly continue to feature prominently in employers’ wish lists.

That fits what we’re seeing in the market. The clients we speak with aren’t running speculative headcount drives. they’re hiring with precision. They want senior engineers who can move a roadmap forward, mid-level specialists in stacks that already underpin their products, and commercial people who can credibly sell complex technical propositions. Generalists are landing in deeper pools; specialists are still being chased.

KPMG’s Manchester Office Senior Partner Chris Stott described the wider trend as businesses moving ahead with recruitment plans for roles where specialist skills remain in demand, while taking a more selective and strategic approach overall. That’s a fair summary of what’s happening across the Northern tech sector right now. The companies that pulled back hardest in 2024 and 2025 are starting to rebuild, but they’re rebuilding leaner and smarter.

For employers, the takeaway is straightforward: the window for hiring senior technical talent is open, but the people you want most are still scarce and the longer you wait, the more competition you’ll face from peers who’ve already started moving.

Tech sales and commercial roles: a quiet shortage

One of the most useful but easy-to-miss findings in the April report sits outside the IT category itself. Sales, including field sales, business development and telesales, featured prominently on the shortage list for permanent roles in the North. For technology companies, where commercial hires often make or break a year, this is significant.

In our conversations with North West IT and software businesses, this aligns with what we consistently hear: strong technical Account Managers, Business Development Managers, and pre-sales engineers are hard to find and even harder to land. The candidates who can sell complex software, services or infrastructure to demanding buyers and who have the relationship capital to do it from day one remain a genuine bottleneck.

This is a tech-sector issue as much as a sales issue. The functional shortage cuts across industries, but it bites particularly hard in technology because the buying cycles, technical depth and stakeholder complexity raise the bar on what “good” looks like.

The implication for tech employers: if you’ve had a vacancy on the commercial team for more than three months, it’s not going to fill itself. The candidates that match the brief are typically passive, often happy enough in their current seats, and require a thoughtful, well-paced approach rather than a job advert.

The IT contracting market: still under pressure

Now to the more difficult side of the report — and one that matters disproportionately to the tech sector because so much technology work in the UK is delivered through contractors.

Temporary billings across the North fell for a sixth consecutive month in April, and the rate of decline was the steepest of any English region. Recruiters pointed to firms choosing not to renew contracts and projects reaching natural completion. Temporary hourly pay rates also fell again, and the North was the only English region to do so. Temp pay has now slipped in back-to-back months.

For IT contractors and the businesses that rely on them, this is the reality on the ground. Day rates that have softened are unlikely to bounce sharply, project work is being scrutinised, and contract extensions are no longer the formality they once were. The contracting market is not collapsing, vacancies for temporary roles in the North actually grew for a third month, and the North was the only English region where temp vacancies rose. But it is reshaping.

What does that mean in practice? For permanent IT employers, this is an opportunity. A meaningful share of the contractor population is now, for the first time in years, actively or quietly open to permanent roles. Some of the strongest engineers in the North are reachable for a permanent move in a way that wasn’t true 18 months ago — particularly if the role offers genuine technical scope and a credible product story.

For contract professionals, the data suggests positioning matters more than ever. Specialist skills are still rewarded, generalist ones are being squeezed, and a strong narrative around recent project outcomes is doing more of the work in winning the next contract than it used to.

Candidate availability: a deeper pool, with caveats

Permanent candidate availability in the North rose at the fastest rate of any English region in April, sharper than in London, the South and the Midlands. Temporary candidate availability also continued its long run of growth, stretching back to early 2023.

On the surface, this is great news for tech employers. More applicants per role, broader choice, and the ability to be selective without the pipeline drying up. But it’s important to read the why honestly. Recruiters across the region attributed the rise to two things: more redundancies and candidates becoming more willing to put themselves on the market.

In the tech sector specifically, redundancies have been a real feature of the past 18 months, particularly in scale-up and growth-stage businesses that over-hired in 2022. The talent now coming through to market often has strong CVs, genuine delivery experience and credible technical depth. For employers ready to move, this is one of the better windows we’ve seen for landing experienced people who were out of reach not long ago.

The corollary: candidates in this market are competing in larger applicant pools, and the bar for application quality has risen. A speculative application is much less likely to land than a well-prepared one with a clear narrative about what you’ve shipped and where you want to take it next.

Pay: modest inflation, but the right roles command a premium

Permanent starting salaries in the North rose for a fifth straight month in April, with pay inflation slightly stronger than the UK average. Recruiters linked the increase to employers stretching to attract skilled labour and to a higher share of senior-level appointments coming through.

The pace of pay growth is moderate by historical standards,  nothing like the heat of 2022, and ONS data confirms that UK total earnings growth has eased to its slowest annual rate since late 2020. So we’re not in a runaway-salary environment.

But within that softer backdrop, the divergence between in-demand specialist roles and the broader market is widening. For a strong C# developer, a credible technical sales leader, or a senior engineer in a scarce stack, the offers being made today are noticeably better than the offers being made for the same role 12 months ago. For the broader pool, pay is stable but unspectacular.

The lesson for tech employers: don’t expect to win specialist hires on lateral money. The market has quietly repriced the people who matter most, even if the average looks flat. For technology professionals with skills in short supply, this is one of the better moments in recent memory to test the market, particularly for a permanent move.

So the picture is genuinely two-handed. The North’s local momentum is real, and the data is encouraging. But the operating environment is still difficult, and that’s part of why the contracting market is contracting even as permanent hiring strengthens.

What this means for tech employers in Lancashire

A few practical takeaways for technology businesses across the region:

The senior hiring window is the most favourable in years. Specialist developers, technical sales leaders, engineering managers and senior product professionals are reachable in a way they haven’t been for some time, and a meaningful share of them are open to permanent moves after the contracting squeeze. If a critical hire has been parked, this is the moment to revisit it.

Move quickly when you find the right person. Pay for specialist roles is rising, while the broader market remains moderate. The cost of a strong hire today is likely lower than it will be in six months, but candidates with multiple offers are not waiting around.

Rethink your contractor versus permanent mix. With temp rates softening and contract extensions less certain, some work that was outsourced in the leaner years is worth bringing back in-house. Equally, contractors who have been in your business for 12+ months may be open to a permanent conversation they wouldn’t have entertained in 2023.

Invest in your commercial bench. Sales and business development talent in tech is genuinely scarce. If your 2026 plan rests on commercial growth, the people who will deliver it need to be in seat by Q3 at the latest. Reactive hiring won’t work for these roles.

What this means for tech professionals

If you’re a developer, engineer, technical leader or commercial professional in tech, the market is the most open it’s been since 2022. Permanent placements in the North are at a four-year high; employers are willing to pay for specialist skills; and the businesses hiring tend to have longer-term plans.

For permanent professionals considering a move, the conditions look credible. For contractors, the market is harder than it was, but specialist skills still command premiums, and a well-prepared permanent move is worth a serious look. For those who’ve come through redundancy, you’re not alone, but you are competing in deeper pools, and a focused, well-positioned application will land far better than a scattergun one.

The outlook

The North of England is quietly outperforming the rest of the country on permanent hiring, and the tech sector, particularly in Lancashire and Greater Manchester, sits squarely within that story. Specialist demand is real, candidate availability is at its deepest in some time, and businesses moving ahead now are gaining a head start over competitors still in wait-and-see mode.

If you’d like to talk through your tech or IT hiring plan, or you’re a technology professional thinking about your next move, we’d be glad to have a conversation with you

Gary Keay — GK Recruitment Data source: KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs: North of England, April 2026 (© 2026 S&P Global, produced in association with REC). ONS earnings data via S&P Global Market Intelligence.