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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 UK recruitment industry's report on jobs shows IT contractor demand has risen to second out of eight sectors with demand for permanent IT workers well up on last year too. The Recruitment and Employment Confederation's Report on Jobs showed demand for IT contractors jumped six places in December on its position 12 months ago. The report said skills in demand include developers and programmers. General availability of staff to fill contract positions fell for the third successive month in December at the sharpest rate since March 2001 with skill shortages becoming increasingly widespread. General hourly rates of pay for contract workers rose for the seventh month running with the rate of increase picking up marginally on that recorded the previous month. Rising rates were generally attributed to buoyant growth of demand for temporary staff, and a diminishing supply of staff to fill jobs. Average weekly billings received by recruitment agencies from contractors rose for the seventh consecutive month. Despite the healthy increase in billings, agencies’ margins on temporary and contract staff continued to decline in December, as strong competition enabled employers to negotiate more favourable rates. In the permanent sector, demand for IT workers rose to third place with skills reported as being in short supply including office support. The number of people placed in permanent jobs by recruitment consultancies rose for the seventh consecutive month in December, and at the sharpest rate since July 2000. Again, recruiters reported lower availability of candidates to fill permanent vacancies. Consultancies generally attributed the rise in demand for permanent employees to an improvement in business confidence at clients. Brett Walsh, Head of UK Human Capital at Deloitte, said the report's findings signalled a strong improvement in the UK recruitment market, rounding off a positive second half of 2003. "However, with demand for staff remaining buoyant, and with fewer candidates available to fill vacant positions at employers, skills shortages are set to become more prominent during 2004," he added. Simon Mortimer, manager of Canary Wharf-based Code Recruitment - which specialises in software development contractors - said his agency had experienced a heightened level of activity, even this week. "We've been inundated," he said. "About 30 per cent of our business revolves around contractors. I've had a few sniffs from clients about potential work for them, but we've been placing permanent workers all over the place. "Contractors tend to lead the way though and there has been a noticeable increase in market activity around them in recent weeks." He said the sudden rise in demand for IT workers is probably a result of organisations that had projects tabled at the end of the year, but we're waiting until the start of the New Year to initiate them. "Four out of our five leading clients who were notoriously quiet last year have all just inundated me with requests simultaneously - so it's fair to say it's on the up," he said. Whether it is just the initial release of the valve rather than something that will continue throughout the rest of the year remains to be seen, however, he said. "We know there's never going to be a return to the 1998-2000 period in terms of activity but we're looking for the next driver out there - we're looking at what the next key technical issue is that's going to cause another scramble in the marketplace. "3G didn't develop as many people thought it would, but there is an uptake on web services that could be one to watch out for. Microsoft .Net has been a natural evolution too - there's a strong demand for people who are skilled in it, but it's still a "catch 22" because it's only for experienced and qualified contractors." Mr Mortimer said he didn't see anything that was going to spark a "feeding frenzy" in the market at the moment. "The main skills sets we're seeing demand in is C++, Java, MS Suite and Web Developers." Another guiding factor for a recovery is the level of rates clients are willing to stretch to, says Mr Mortimer. "Rates will increase as a process of natural evolution as demand sparks again. "There's a brewing sentiment of discontent amongst many contractors because of the way large companies axed them last year and the year before, cutting the rates of those they kept. "It has meant the whole notion of loyalty has been disbanded fairly rapidly. But contractors can only jump for a higher paying job if it's out there and I don't think there's going to be a surge in rates across the board that will enable that to happen just yet," he added. Southampton-based BS consultants said its contractor department had not seen any growth in the last three months, but was planning for growth over the coming months. The contrast, coupled with Jobstats favoured locations as reported below, appears to show London as the regional hotspot for contracting growth at the beginning of 4004. Jobstats reports the average rates for IT contractors are £20 per hour and £37,100 per annum for permanent employees. The top three skills in demand, according to Jobstats, are: Management, Support and Analysts and the top three locations are London, City and England. Presswire Jan 9, 2004 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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