Why we believe these skill sets are demand
ABI research says that developers and other stakeholders generated $8.5 revenue from mobile apps last year are predicted to exceed $46m by 2016.
Google mobile business set for $8b this year, up from $2.5b the previous year.
Facebook, Google, and anybody else involved in advertising have their best brains working on how to monetise mobile, through apps.
Mobile payments & NFC offerings will face stiff competition from mobile payments apps which will mean the desire to develop these new apps instead of large scale wallets will be larger in the coming years
Mobile apps will expand past phones and tablets through to games consoles, TV's & even cars.
The MAIN downside to mobile and app development is that it involves a large investment in devices and testing because there are SO many different platforms, operating systems and types of hardware to test.
There are also issues with Android around scalability, and also the early OS version on Android devices was very clunky and updating to the latest version can take months to update the devices and applications. You need Windows Phone 7/8 and or a laptop that runs Windows RT and Windows 8 in order to develop the apps.
What rates to expect in the next 12 months?
£300-£500+ per day which is wildly variable because it will depend on your seniority / depth of experience. To get the highest daily rates you will need to demonstrate you have developed a hit app.
iPhone and Android command the highest rates at the moment but we believe Windows 8 developer rates will catch these up very soon (especially with the release of the Surface and Windows 8 phones a few weeks ago)
A lot of work in the mobile space is based on fixed priced projects which can mean these rates are significantly more (if you finish ahead of time) or less (if you overrun or you don't understand the brief fully)
We have contractors working on varying rates due to contract length, seniority, skills and number of hours expected
Jobs advertised
The number of iPhone & Android jobs is up on last year but still not at particularly high levels compared to the other technologies in the development world. This in my view is because a large majority of these roles are filled by recommendation and not through agencies.
iPhone developers are the MOST in demand in the UK at the moment, but with China demand seeing Android at 90% of the market share this may well change.
Blackberry and Windows8 jobs advertised are very low. Blackberry app development roles are at an all-time low and Windows 8 will increase dramatically in the near future with the recent release of Windows 8, The Surface and the new Windows8 compatible phones.
What skills should you be obtaining in order to get the best possible rates?
iPhone & Android command the highest rates but you MUST demonstrate a strong portfolio of apps either in the retail, spread betting or high transactional financial applications command the best rates and are MOST in demand.
Windows8 will be the rising star we believe, especially with the release of the Surface a few weeks ago.
Blackberry jobs advertised and requirements is at an all-time low
It seems developers are not interested in developing mobile apps with HTML5 although we are starting to see strong demand for this combination of skills.
Combined with strong HTML5 mobile app developers will achieve the best rates and will be in the highest demand.
Hope this was of use to you.
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@adam_rab
@azure_ninjas
