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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 last three months have been woeful in many ways. The nation’s sporting representatives have served up dross in half a dozen different fields. The heavens have served up a deluge to leave low lying towns surrounded by tides of sewage. It has been a summer to forget. And the months of June, July and August normally offer a pretty tepid market for contractors too. Holiday cover is often needed, but decision makers themselves are often away, delaying sign off on new resources for a week or two, and the end of year panic is yet to kick in. But this summer has brought some succor to those techies left wan and baleful by the grey skies outside. Contractor rates have continued the trend begun at the end of spring, and marched merrily upwards. In May this year, we reported how rates across the ten most commonly requested roles had risen for the first time in 2007, to a year high of £30.61, up from £29.85 in April. These figures came from www.itjobswatch.co.uk. Taking that top ten again, we see that the average hourly rate is £33.28, a healthy 8% rise, and setting a high that we have to go back to November ’06 to beat. Other sources are even more encouraging. www.jobstats.co.uk. has a smaller sample, but does have some interesting numbers. It puts the average rate across all contract roles at £40. But, we must assume that this includes less frequent (but high paying) gigs that nudge the average upwards. Further encouragement comes from Atsco, an association for IT recruitment agencies. It runs a quarterly survey of contractor rates, and its most recently available figures show average hourly pay rising by 5%. So, while it’s been gloomy outside, contractors have had some good news. The trick has been finding the areas that pay. Web development is one area that has seen a mini boom. In July we reported on figures from Atsco that suggested a rates bump of 26% for web developers over the previous year, moving from £23 to £29. At the time, the association claimed that, “the proliferation of social networking sites, and the increasing amount of time people are spending online, has lead to a boom in demand for online content.” The figures of www.itjobswatch.co.uk would appear to support these findings. It has the average hourly rate for web developers moving from £25 to £28.99 over the 12 months to the beginning of September, a rise of more than 15%. Not quite as dramatic as the boost claimed by Atsco, but encouraging, none the less. But, other sources paint a slightly less positive picture. www.jobstats.co.uk puts average web roles at £37.50, a healthy rise on the £34 average of 12 months previously. But, this is markedly down on the £42.50 average in spring this year. Again, we can assume this fluctuation is due to the inclusion of a small number of senior roles, but it also suggests that, overall, an initial flurry of shorter, well paid contracts has died away in the last few months. At the end of last month we noted the buoyancy of telecoms jobs, with a rates rise from £37 to £43. But, other figures (itjobswatch again) are less encouraging, with a rise of just under 4% for the same period, and rates averaging out at £27.88. And roles requesting 3G skills have actually fallen in the 12 months to September, from £37 to £31.19 (a 16.3% fall). Similarly, Jobstats finds that demand for 3G roles has fallen by 16% (as a proportion of all jobs advertised) over the same period. Both groups of figures show 3G rates soaring about a year ago, and then falling steadily. There is one area that everyone agrees is on the up; testing. Aidan Anglin, MD of recruitment firm Spring notes that, ‘over the last year there was an influx in the launch of new IT projects, and as some of these are now coming to an end we're finding that testers are particularly high in demand.’ Rates have charged up by more than 60% on this time last year, moving from £18 to £29.11, according to itjobswatch. Jobstats records a similar spike, with demand shifting form 15% to 20% of the total number of jobs advertised (though this is based on a much smaller sample – around 25,000 jobs, compared to well over 100,000 for itjobswatch). This is good news for testers, but less good news for those involved at the beginning of the development cycle. Business Analysts, for example, have seen rates drop by 3.55% (from £35 to £34.15) in the time that testers have seen theirs rise, according to itjobswatch. One steady barometer is the finance industry. It tends to lead all others in demands for staff. The impact of the recent stock market wobbles have yet to be fully felt, and won’t really be known until our next report. For the moment though, the news is pretty good. Stephanie Elliott, MD of Volt Europe, reckons that demand for contractors is currently high in the ‘buoyant financial services sector,’ which is benefiting from, ‘the increased requirements of the ITIL standard, continuing M&A activities and a trend by the smaller entities to outsource.’ This is supported by a recent survey by silicon.com, which found that half of respondents in the financial services sector have IT vacancies they are unable to fill. So if you know a tester in the world of finance, they’re doing alright at the moment. Matt Farquharson Sep 5, 2007 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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