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| CURRENT SECTION :: Market Reports | UK's most visited IT Contractor Site - 250k unique visitors March 2008 |
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November last year marked the first fall in our measure of average contractor hourly rates since March 2005. The hope was that this was nothing more serious than a seasonal dip and that rates would pick up with the New Year and fresh budgets. And this has proved to be the case. Average rates across the ten most commonly requested skills now sit at £30.77 per hour. This is higher than anything recorded in 2005, and more than a pound higher than the £29.75 of November. The figures are a mean of hourly averages for the ten most requested skills on itjobswatch. These include generic terms such as ‘analyst’ and skills such as ‘SAP’ and cover more than 100,000 advertised vacancies. January can often set the tone for a contractor’s year, and many will hope this is true of 2006. This time last year, those questioned for our market report predicted rising rates through the first three quarters with a tail off at the beginning of winter. Our average rates support those predictions, and typically settled higher than in 2004 month for month. So, where is the money going? In December we indulged in a little crystal ball gazing, and the one skill that recruiters repeatedly mentioned was .NET. It appears that they had good reason. Since November, hourly .NET rates have risen from £30 to £31.50, a 5% rise in rate, off an 8% increase in the number if advertised roles. Dave Wheeler is a Principal Technologist and .NET expert with QA. ‘Where organisations are going to be introducing .NET 2.0 it will be critical to make sure that there are enough people available who know the technology,’ he says. ‘ASP.NET 2.0 is radically different from ASP.NET 1.x, so it's important to get up-to-speed with the changes quickly.’ But as ever, contractors remain beholden to market trends and tastes for new technology. Wheeler, only sees the demand for .NET increasing. ‘For organisations that have been reluctant to move to .NET, the improved power and ease of use that is available in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 will finally convince them that now is the time to dive in to the world of managed application development.’ This of course, has a knock on in related application development skills. Those with solid SQL server knowledge are currently enjoying a boom time, with rates jumping from £29.68 to £32.13 since November - a rise of more than 8%. But, the good news is not universal. At the end of last year, Contractor UK covered a report by E-Skills, which showed that while the north/south pay gap was narrowing in the broader economy, in IT, it was actually widening. Their figures referred to permanent rates, but the same is true for contractors. While the rate for those in London stays roughly steady for the year to January 2006, at just over £24.50, the average in the North West has fallen from £23.80 to £21.23. It is worth noting that the London figures exclude the City itself and the banking jobs typically found there. Another area worth noting is government spending. Two weeks ago, a report by Giant Group revealed that the government is now the largest single employer of IT contractors in the UK, with public sector use of contractors doubling in the last two years to account for 27% of the market. It has overtaken the financial sector, which has 24% of jobs. It is an area where recruiters can look for previous experience in order to ensure a cultural fit. But, Matthew Brown, managing director at Giant Group, feels the sector could struggle for talent in the near future. "The question for government is whether it can compete long-term with a resurgent financial services industry in terms of getting the skills. If key IT staff are poached by the City, there could be serious consequences for the government's IT agenda." And serious money to be earned by contractors willing to work there. Matt Farquharson Data source: www.itjobswatch.co.uk Feb 1, 2006 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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