Demand for flexibility remains strong in Hong Kong’s tech industry.

76% of technology hiring managers in Hong Kong found recruitment ‘very’ or ‘quite’ competitive in 2023, Morgan McKinley reported.

For 2024, the report stated that key hiring challenges include a shortage of skilled candidates (25%), difficulties in competing on pay and benefits (22%), and lack of approval for a new headcount (19%).

Despite this, 50% of technology hiring managers will increase headcount in H1 2024 and 46% of tech workers are seeking new roles in the same period, with another 31% considering the move.

Some in-demand tech jobs in Hong Kong include Java Programmer, Cloud Engineer, Data Architect, and Data Scientist while in-demand skills include Python, Cybersecurity, Kafka, and SQL.

Work-from-home setup tops tech professionals’ top 5 valued benefits followed by bonus, flexible working hours, health insurance, and pension.

42% of surveyed tech professionals prefer to be in the office 1-2 days a week whilst only 8% want to be onsite for 5 days a week.

Meanwhile, 53% would skip a pay rise if it meant they got the flexibility they desired.

In addition, 69% of employers expect their salary offers to increase for certain hard-to-fill roles across technology, with a further 20% plan to increase salary offers for all Tech teams.