‘Twice as many job openings for the highly skilled’

Workers in the IT sector who were able to set aside time and money earlier in the year for professional training should be seeing a slight upturn compared to their less qualified rivals.

Research for the Association of Professional Staffing Companies shows that demand for highly skilled staff rose by 7% in April – almost twice the growth rate for standard vacancies.

Those with industry-recognised qualifications who want to work on a full-time basis saw the biggest increase in opportunities, the research found, when compared to April last year.

Openings for contractors, defined as professionals who use an umbrella or limited company, also rose in highly skilled areas – by 2%, against 1% for other, lower value skill sectors.

Chief executive of APSCo Ann Swain reflected:  “In many highly skilled sectors of the economy, such as IT, it is incredibly hard to source certain skills from within the UK.

“Recruiters are reporting that it can take up to six months to fill a vacancy for an in-demand IT skill.”

In IT and Telecoms, the number of advertised job fell by 1% overall - from 77,187 to 76,533 - although some areas of the country saw a significant increase in new IT posts.

According to APSCo, ICT openings in Scotland grew the most (28%), followed by those in Wales, East Anglia, the South East, the West Midlands and the South West (- only 1 %).