Canadian and US companies are targeting UK online gambling and gaming programmers

April 28, 2014

There can be no doubt that online gambling, and indeed, all forms of online gaming, has seen a veritable explosion over the last few years. One of the side effects of this rise in the popularity of online casino games, is that there are not enough skilled game programmers around. Some countries, such as Canada, are looking at the UK to start recruiting people to develop online gambling games.

We have just seen the results of a survey that shows that a pretty high percentage of UK based game developers, and this includes those that develop online gambling games, is being tempted away by companies in Canada and the USA. How many? Well, over 50% of all job postings in the UK for online gaming and online gambling programmers are for work overseas. With just 20% of the jobs posted being for UK based companies.

Taking a look at the cost of living in the UK, and the tax situation, it is easy to see why qualified, experience online gambling game developers in the UK would find working in Canada to give them a better quality of life.

On top of this, we need to look at the situation from a company point of view. In Canada, online gambling game development companies can often receive a tax break, in major areas such as Quebec and Ontario. This means that not only are the game developers themselves better off after moving to Canada, the Canadian companies that employ them are also.

Lisa Mangan, who is a Relationship Manager for a major recruitment company, has said that, “The UK is regarded as a leader in developing computer games and in online gaming. The danger for the UK games industry and for the wider UK economy is that many of the best and brightest will be recruited by overseas firms who may have deeper pockets and be prepared to pay more. The computer games industry makes a significant contribution to the UK economy and the Government is right to do everything it can to encourage these and other specialist IT consultants to remain in the UK.”

This might be bad news for the UK, but it is good news for the online gambling industry in Canada. The more skilled game developers on the book s of Canadian based companies, the greater the chance of these same Canadian companies becoming leaders in the field. So from a local perspective, it’s all good news.

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