How is Hiring in the UK? (not a recruiter post!)

[Peter Braden]

Hey Guys

It's been a while since I've seen most of you - I've been in
America working for a company called Yammer for the last year.
We're thinking of opening an office in the UK and I wanted to
pick your brains about the idea.

Just to be clear, this isn't a recruiting email, although we
are hiring so feel free to contact...

Basically the San Francisco area where we're based is saturated
with web companies and we're really struggling to find developer
talent of the calibre we need. Having lived in the UK I know
that we have a lot of really great developers, and with the
proximity to the rest of Europe, there's a lot of opportunity
to hire engineers over there.

I'm on the techmeetup mailing list, so I get the thousands of
recruiter emails, so I know that Edinburgh devs are in as much
demand as anywhere else - we are a valuable commodity, but I'm
hopeful that that a San Francisco tech company (and a pretty
damn fine one) would have a good pull in the UK - the perks,
interesting tech challenges, and innovative business are
great reasons to work for us.

But we don't want to make any decisions without due diligence,
and that's why I wanted to ask you guys, many of whom have tried
to hire devs over there, thought about the current hiring
situation. What are our chances? Are there any things we should
do, or take into consideration?

Thanks,

Peter