When we look at work we think that jobs affected by economic downturn are risky (builders, vets, farmers). We also think that some other jobs are risky because they provide access to means and methods (doctors, vets, farmers).
There are some risk factors for programmers: young; single; male; intelligent enough to research methods;
For England there are these sources:
Office of National Statistics.
these numbers are robust, and good quality. They very clearly define what they do count as suicide and what they don't count. They also clearly define how they define the year - the year of registration, which may not be the year the death happened.
Searching for suicide returns a lot of information, some of which is provided under FOI request.
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/search/index.html?newquery=suicide
Suicides in the UK (2013 registrations) http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health4/suicides-i...
Suicides in the UK (2012 registrations): http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health4/suicides-i...
National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness
http://www.bbmh.manchester.ac.uk/cmhs/research/centreforsuic...
There's also information available from Public Health England.
http://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile-group/mental-health/pro...
http://www.phoutcomes.info/public-health-outcomes-framework#...
EDIT: Here's the link to the CDC stuff: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/statistics/
http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/definitions.ht...
I've struggled recently with burnout, and add that to personal struggles such as relationships and friendships, I've been in a bad place more than once. Talking helps; though with Ian everything happened so quickly, and with Aaron also, the law was seemingly involved with both.
There must be FOI requests that can be made for this sort of data, and some analysis might indicate an underlying problem which could begin to be addressed.