Slight upturn in IT contractor job adverts

IT developers in London appear the best placed computer professionals to make the most of only anaemic growth in both the permanent and contract technology jobs markets.

Figures released by CWJobs.co.uk/jobsadwatch.co.uk, and obtained by CUK, this week showed that more than 125,000 IT jobs were created in the past three months.

More than 17,000 thousand of those IT openings were contract or temporary – up on the 16,600 advertised in the first quarter, and 108,000 were full-time, up from 105,000 in the same period.

In London alone, more than 37,000 adverts for IT workers were uploaded between April and June, representing about one third of the total number of UK-based computer jobs analysed.

A CW Jobs spokeswoman explained: “[The] data is based on key information taken from all the jobs advertised in the UK’s leading IT and multi-sector recruitment websites, together with jobs advertised in IT business magazines, as well as national and selected regional press.”

Although it does not cover vacancies for IT sales or positions overseas, the dataset does show which IT skills are commanding the most ad space – and therefore are the most sought-after by end-users.

Whether permanent or contract, coders are out in front – with SQL, C and C# topping both markets, followed by Java, .Net and then Oracle (on a temporary basis) and .Net, Java and then SQL Server (on a full-time basis).

Richard Johnson, of IT jobs agency Jenrick confirmed: “Java, C# and SQL are the skills on the top of client’s wish-lists with virtualisation and cloud computing programmes being very ‘hot’ at present.

“Other ‘hot jobs’ skills include; VM Ware, Python, VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure), Citrix and candidates with an MCITP”.

In line with the his analysis, the development posts on CW Jobs – which account for 39% of the total number of IT  jobs counted by the site – showed demand for less traditional coders, including VM Ware, but also Agile and Scrum.

Elsewhere, intake of all IT staff by each major sector of the economy was only marginally up over the past three months, yet appears flat on an annual basis, partly evidenced by the fastest-growing sector, Financial Services, generating just 200 additional IT roles.

Serving to underline the weakness for IT job-hopefuls, the latest monthly Report on Jobs this week scored demand for temporary or freelance computer skills at 55.5, worse than last July and the lowest level so far this year.

The reading suggests the contract IT jobs market (when measured by billings) is shrinking – seemingly at odds with CW Jobs, whose quarterly dataset indicates the temporary IT market is growing, at a rate of 2.2% since March. Computer People has also reported marginal growth.

Reflecting on the REC’s findings, report co-author KPMG said: “Employers across all sectors remain cautious about hiring new staff. The key reason for this is the uncertain economic outlook with domestic demand being weighed down by government cutbacks and falling real wages, while exports and investment are not strong enough to take up the slack.”