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| CURRENT SECTION :: Market Reports | UK's most visited IT Contractor Site - 250k unique visitors March 2008 |
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The most commonly requested roles are a good barometer of industry health, as the type of roles themselves have remained fairly constant since the first of these market reports last November. The average rate for this group, which includes developers, analysts, project managers and UNIX specialists, has risen to £27.60 per hour, up from £27.01 in May, which in itself was a climb from the £26.81 of April. The current figure is the highest this year, surpassing the £27.56 set in January. This rate rise can partly be attributed to the time of year. Contractors can find themselves on short term fillers as staffers disappear for their summer sojourn. Also, as we are six months on from January, many contractors take the opportunity to slip away themselves at the end of contracts. All good news for those who stay and battle sweaty trains and busted air conditioners. But perhaps a more interesting feature of this month’s figures is the type of role requested. For the first time, the role of analyst has surpassed that of developer at the number one spot. However, Rory Ferguson, a director at Harvey Nash IT notes that, “there is not necessarily a decrease in demand for developers, but this fact does indicate an increase in demand for analysts. Due to the specific business acumen required with BAs this is often a tougher skill to source. Generally, technical skills are a lot more transferable than industry sector specialism. This could account for an increase in jobs posted.” This shift is broadly reflected in developer rates. While SQL, the most commonly requested skill nudged up by a few pennies, for most other languages there was a significant tumble. Java fell from £34.25 to £32.96, C++ dropped from £33.92 to £33.08 and C# went from £33.27 to £32.80. Given the rates for Java and C++ in January, (£35.70 and £38.40 respectively) these falls mark a significant six month drop off: 8% in the case of Java, and 14% for C++. The C# rate over the same period has actually risen slightly, despite this month’s drop, from £32.30 in January, a rise of 2%. Ferguson notes that while he has, “seen a lowering in demand for Java skills and an increase in demand for .net,” there has been, “no shift in remuneration as yet.” There has though been one spectacular rise: the ever fluctuating ABAP market. Month on month from May to June, average rates for ABAP programmers have leapt from £40.83 to £53.17, a colossal 23%. Even if we assume that last months figures were affected by a large number of lower level ABAP roles, this marks a significant increase for a skill that has been steadily falling over the last few months. In March average rates reached £77.30, so while this month’s surge has yet to reach those heady heights, the upward movement is encouraging. The telecoms and networking arena remains strong, with the average rate across the ten most common skills (including TCP/IP, LAN, WAN, internet and firewalls) has risen from £26.03 to £27.70 between May and June. In March, we noted the strong showing in this area, as rates increased across the board, and contractors in the field should be encouraged by solid growth in this often fluctuating arena. Rate increases are apparent across all these skills, but again, GSM and 3G moved the most. GSM rose from £32.69 to £36.70, while 3G went from £34.98 to £38.70. Both have been up and down over the course of the year, reflecting the often stop-start nature of projects in this area but currently those with these skills look well placed. Matt Farquharson Jun 29, 2005 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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