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| CURRENT SECTION :: Market Reports | UK's most visited IT Contractor Site - 250k unique visitors March 2008 |
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In the six months from May this year, average contractor hourly rates in the ten most common roles have dropped 11% from £26.10 to £23.35. In the first of a monthly series of market summaries, we look at the latest contractor pay figures to see what areas are most in demand from employers. The post-summer drop off in demand for graduates explains much of the fall in average rates. Graduate rates tumbled from £22 to £16 per hour. The City of London continues to provide the best reward for contractor skills. Over the last year, various independent bodies have commented on the steady swell of contract IT roles in investment banking and other City institutions. The average hourly rate is £30, more than 15% higher than second placed greater London. Greater London claims 33% of contract IT roles currently advertised, with a further 6% based in the City. The most popular area outside the South East is the Midlands, mentioned in slightly more than 3% of advertisements. SAP remains in strong demand, appearing in more than one in ten advertised vacancies. It also brings in tidy rates for contractors. SAP modules appear four times in the top ten hourly rates, filling spots four to seven. The modules HR, MM, SEM and WM bring in an average hourly rate of £70. ERP savvy contractors also hold the top spot, with Peoplesoft HRMS contractors claiming the highest average rate, at £100 per hour. Jeff Brooks is Operations Director for Parity and Chair of the IT sector for the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC.) He says, “SAP and others have shrink wrapped their offerings and made them available to smaller organisations, which has made SAP a more appealing skill to have.” FileMaker is the second most costly contract skill for employers, commanding £95 per hour. However, it is rarely requested, appearing in just 0.01% of advertisements. The most common role advertised is Developer (the average hourly rate comes in at £32). Such roles account for 19% of all advertised vacancies. Second most common is Analyst at just under 19% (hourly rate £22) and the all-encompassing ‘Consultant’ (£32) appearing as the job title in 16% of vacancies. SQL (£30) is the most in demand programming language, appearing in 10% of all advertised roles. This is followed by Java (£39,), which is requested by 8% of advertisers, and C++ (£39,) where demand falls to 4%. Windows (12% of adverts / £20) remains the most popular skill for systems administrators. UNIX (11% / £31) and Windows NT (8% / £20) fill the number two and three slots. For database and business intelligence roles, SQL Server (6% / £30) is most wanted. Oracle 9i (4% / £35) and generic data warehousing (2% / £38) experience are second and third most popular respectively. The communications and networking sector remains somewhat in the doldrums with the most popular skill, TCP/IP, getting a mention in only 3% of advertisements. The biggest movement in this arena has been a downward tumble from 3G. It dropped out of the comms and networking top ten to be replaced by SMS. Brooks notes that, “we’re not seeing masses of new networks, these have largely been implemented. People are adding functionality and no more.” Central Europe remains a lucrative hunting ground for contractors searching for overseas experience. Average hourly rates in Switzerland are a very healthy £95 per hour, though taxes for foreign workers can run as high as 45%. Germany and the Netherlands remain popular and well paid locations, each averaging £46 per hour. Again, rates vary within countries. Finance centre Frankfurt pays rates £10 per hour higher than the German average. But, there are options for those in search of sunnier climes. The need for talent in Spain has pushed rates up to £67 per hour. As for the future, Brooks notes that recruiters are, “struggling to find C# and .NET skills. Having those will be a nice place to be for technicians over the coming months.” Matt Farquharson IT Jobs Market Data supplied exclusively to CUK by ITJobsWatch. For full 'Top Ten' contractor data click here: Hourly Rates Contracting Skills Nov 24, 2004 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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