Proptech company has tripled its staff but sees major shortage of skilled developers

The team at Placepoint now numbers three times as many as in December, and the company is hunting for even more talent.

Estate Nyheter wrote last autumn about the new proptech newcomer Placepoint, which provides analysis tools for the property industry. Now the team is three times larger than in December, and they are gearing up for further growth. But like many other tech companies, they are encountering the challenge of a shortage of developers, according to a press release.

Managing Director Peder Sunde describes the pace as high at the moment.

"We deliver new functionality almost every single week, both map layers, new 3D tools and collaboration tools are developed and rolled out on a continuous basis. Nevertheless, we want an even higher pace, and we would have liked to be more people. It is a major challenge for the vast majority of tech companies that there is a great shortage of skilled developers."

The digitalisation wave

All organisations, private and public, are digitalising. The pandemic has reinforced this further. IKT Norge believes there is a need for over 40,000 more employees by 2030.

"This has been a challenge for many years and it is only increasing," says Sunde.

In 2020, there were 3,250 unfilled IT positions in this country, according to Nav's annual business survey. The shortage is clearly greatest among software and application developers.

"These are the developers we are all looking for," he adds.

It is a societal challenge that so many companies cannot get the competence they need, but the challenges do not only apply to private industry. The public sector is also facing comprehensive digitalisation and is hunting for the same heads.

"Across the entire country, there are digitalisation projects that are stalling, products that cannot be developed and sales that cannot be delivered because the workforce needed is not available. A report from 2021 claims that if we do not manage to fill the competence gap, we risk an annual loss of value of 2.2 billion kroner. The signals from organisations such as NITO, Tekna and NHO are clear and have been over time: There is a great need to increase the number of study places," Sunde points out.

Too late

He also says that the property industry has at times been criticised for being late with digitalisation.

"Now, however, we see that digitalisation has arrived with full force and 2021 was probably the year it really took off for proptech. It is exciting to see the momentum that is building up and now characterises our industry. We believe we have what it takes to be an attractive employer and that we have a solid product. Like many others, we will probably have to discover and recruit competence from several areas, but we will take that challenge," concludes Peder Sunde.