Best city for IT jobs (outside of London)

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What's the 'best' city in the U.K (apart from London) to find an IT job as I'm considering (eventually) relocating?

 

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I think they're all much the same really - it just depends on the size of the city. The bigger the city, the more jobs in IT there are (because the more jobs there are in general).

However, there are lots of IT jobs in the Thames Valley area due to the large number of tech companies based there (Microsoft, Oracle, Vodafone etc). You could do much worse than relocate to Reading - I get lots of offers for jobs in Reading, Bracknell, Sligh, Windsor & Basingstoke

 

I used to live in Reading and found it to be a lot better to live and in general in Bristol. We have moved here a year ago. Reading is horrible place to live in imho

 

Aberdeen is a great place, Oil capital of Europe, or it was, but either way many main offices are here for big companies, like Shell, BP, Nexen, etc etc.

 

In June The IT Job Board conducted research to find where the demand for IT professionals is in the UK. These were our key findings:

The majority of IT opportunities are concentrated in the regions that are home to
Greater London and the South East. The South East represents 21.5% of IT jobs which is partly attributed to the many technology companies which are located in the so called ‘Gatwick Diamond’.

There is a significant portion of IT opportunities in the South West (11%). This region is known for aeronautics, IT, telecommunications and electronics. Whilst the North of England is dominated by heavy industry, mineral extraction and processing which explains the 10.7% of IT jobs on offer in this region.

The East and West Midlands are home to industries such as manufacturing, retail, electronics, finance and entertainment which is why this area is equates to 11.5% of IT jobs. As Wales and Scotland are characterised by light and heavy industries as well as petroleum, the number of IT opportunities is relatively low with Wales accounting for 1.1% of IT jobs and Scotland equating to to 3% of IT jobs.

 

To get a grasp of the current situation in the job market have a look on reed.co.uk and you can see how many IT jobs are in each city. As others have said it seems to go on the size of the city generally. Leeds, Manchester stick out around where I am. When i was up in Scotland the jobs where mainly in Edinburgh and Glasgow due to finance sector and Aberdeen which I guess was because of the oil but i never really looked into this much.

Hope that helps give you some ideas