Developers open to work.
What share of developers mark themselves available for hire?
Where GitHub reports the flag (about a third of profiles), 14.8% of UK developers say they are available for hire, against 7.9% in China (n=65,169).
Sample: 65,169 developers · source: public GitHub profiles · data to 24 September 2026
By city
| City | Figure | Sample (developers) | In words |
|---|---|---|---|
| West Midlands | 17% | 857 | West Midlands: 17% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=857). |
| Brighton and Hove | 16.2% | 407 | Brighton and Hove: 16.2% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=407). |
| London | 16.1% | 23,969 | London: 16.1% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=23,969). |
| Liverpool City Region | 15.3% | 543 | Liverpool City Region: 15.3% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=543). |
| Greater Manchester | 15.1% | 2,397 | Greater Manchester: 15.1% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=2,397). |
| Cardiff | 13.5% | 394 | Cardiff: 13.5% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=394). |
| Edinburgh | 13.5% | 1,678 | Edinburgh: 13.5% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=1,678). |
| Southampton | 13.4% | 320 | Southampton: 13.4% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=320). |
| South Yorkshire | 13.3% | 671 | South Yorkshire: 13.3% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=671). |
| West Yorkshire | 13.1% | 1,043 | West Yorkshire: 13.1% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=1,043). |
| Glasgow | 12.8% | 1,134 | Glasgow: 12.8% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=1,134). |
| Tyne and Wear | 12.7% | 534 | Tyne and Wear: 12.7% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=534). |
| Nottingham | 12.3% | 465 | Nottingham: 12.3% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=465). |
| Cambridge | 11.3% | 1,013 | Cambridge: 11.3% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=1,013). |
| Bristol | 11.1% | 1,164 | Bristol: 11.1% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=1,164). |
| Oxford | 10.1% | 898 | Oxford: 10.1% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=898). |
| Belfast | 9.5% | 514 | Belfast: 9.5% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=514). |
UK vs China
| Country | Figure | Sample (developers) | In words |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 7.9% | 84,753 | China: 7.9% of developers say they are available for hire (UK 14.8%; n=84,753). |
How this is measured
GitHub's "Available for hire" flag, among profiles where the flag was collected (about a third of profiles; the rest are left out, not counted as no). The profiles with the flag collected are not a random third (they differ in activity), so the share describes them, not every developer. Country segment: mainland China. Source: public GitHub profiles and their public repositories (the teky search dataset; each finding's date is the date the data runs to). Population: GitHub accounts whose stated location we confirm as the UK or mainland China — the geocoder's country is re-checked against the location text (DevLocation), which drops "Cambridge, MA", "Stanford, CA", "Birmingham, AL" and "Philadelphia, PA"-style mis-codes and bare town names shared with a larger place abroad, and Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan; organisation accounts and profiles with no GitHub account are excluded. It describes developers who publish on GitHub and state where they are, not every developer: it leans towards open-source contributors, academics and students, and Chinese developers also use Gitee, so China is under-represented. n = developers (GitHub accounts) unless the insight says otherwise.
Cite this
Free to quote with a credit and a link.
ProdReady Recruitment (2026). Developers open to work. Data to 24 September 2026. https://ProdReadyRecruitment.com/research/dev_open_to_work
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