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| CURRENT SECTION :: Market Reports | UK's most visited IT Contractor Site - 250k unique visitors March 2008 |
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IT contractor rates through the first half of 2007 have largely mirrored the weather. While the elements have conspired to serve up scorching March afternoons and freezing May Test Matches, contractor rates have been equally unseasonal. They’ve lurched downwards, resolutely refusing to rise in a New Year flurry or with the new budgets brought in April. Finally, however, there has been positive movement. After trickling slowly downwards, average contractor rates across the ten most commonly requested skills have risen for the first time this year. They now sit at a year high of £30.61, up from the £29.85 of last month. This is a promising step, after a worryingly sluggish start. And .NET continues to storm on, as it has all year. The average hourly rate for jobs quoting this as a necessity is now £33.07, a healthy rise of 5% from the £31.36 of April, and of 7% from the £ 30.77 in January. Much of this can be put down to the radical differences between .NET 1.0 and 2.0, and the premium on those who are skilled in the latter. The number of advertised jobs is an indication of just how in demand .NET is. At the beginning of this year, there were Last month, there were 3,033 advertised contract .NET jobs compared to the 1,567 of a year before. This month, there are 8,764. This boom is also having a positive impact on related skills. Over the last year, C# developers have seen their rates rise by more than 10%, from £31 to £34.42. The increase in job numbers has been less spectacular though, moving from 3,240 jobs, from just over 2,000. Consequently, Java development roles have stagnated, and are virtually unchanged over the last 12 months, moving from £39 to £38.92. One area outside this top ten that is showing healthy growth is Business Intelligence. BI has moved up 59 places in the list of most in demand skills. It is now at 117, from 176 last year. There are more than 600 skills measured. Rates have surged accordingly, shifting up by almost 25% over a year, going from £25 to £31.01. Data warehousing roles are also enjoying a boom. In the last 12 months, hourly rates for these jobs have risen from £31 to £36.18, a leap of more than 18%. Though, it should be added that the relative infrequency of such rates (there are just fewer than 100 warehousing roles that quote hourly rates currently advertised) can skew the figures. The 2,000 daily rates quoted may be a better indication. Here, rates have gone from £416 to £422 over the last year. But, the movement remains resolutely upwards and this growth is likely to continue. Software firm EMC has recently released some research which claims that the number of email inboxes, digital images, and broadband connections will double by 2010. They also claim that the amount of disk-stored information has increased by 60% per year over the last decade. The research, carried out with IDC, predicts a boom in demand for such skills in the coming years. It appears some employers have already noticed, and contractors can expect to reap the benefits. Matt Farquharson Data source: www.itjobswatch.co.uk May 30, 2007 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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