Demand for contractors rises strongly in every sector but IT
Demand for IT contractors continued to fall for the fifth successive month, while nearly all other sectors witnessed a sharp rise in demand for temp and contract staff according to jobs market statistics for July.
'Executive/ Professional staff' was the only other temporary category to record a fall in demand after the second sharpest rate of contraction of demand in the history of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation's Report on Jobs in the IT sector. All other temporary categories reported that demand for staff had risen strongly.
'Nevertheless,' the report warned, 'the rate of growth of demand for staff is below that seen this time last year, with the exception of nursing staff, which exhibited the strongest rise of all temporary categories.'
Demand for IT contractors fell for a fifth successive month in July
Demand for temporary and contract workers in IT & Computing ranked 8th out of 8 other sectors for July, at 39.2 per cent. It similarly ranked 8th this time last year, however demand in the sector was recorded at 53.7 per cent. Skills reported to be in short supply consisted solely of Technicians, as they did the previous month.
The IT job market statistics site, Jobstats, reports the current average hourly rate for IT contractors to be at £31 per hour with the average annual rate at £38,000 per annum.
It reports the top three skill sets most in demand to be: Support (20.2 per cent) at £22 per hour, Unix (19.1 per cent) at £40 per hour and Design (15.5 per cent) at £38 per hour.
The top three locations for contract work (by the number of advertisements referring to them) are: London (26.1 per cent), City (7.9 per cent) and Berkshire (5.1 per cent) - trailing behind them are Surrey and Hampshire respectively.
In the permanent market, IT demand ranked 7th out of 8 at 44.6 per cent. Figures for this time last year showed the permanent IT sector to be in 5th place at 65.4 per cent. Demand for permanent IT staff fell for the third month running, as did demand for Executive/ Professional staff. Key skills reported to be in demand in the permanent IT sector are Java and Ingress Programmers.
Andrew Parker, Director of recruitment agency White & Nunn, commented:
"Interestingly, we are still seeing a growth in our business, even in the prevalent and volatile market of telecoms. Whilst the general market is seen as being totally flat for contractors, we have found pockets of opportunity still very much in evidence for this flexible resource. Certainly the recruitment industry is having to re-align its thinking and its service values and those organisations that have taken steps to re-think their business in tune with client need - are going to be the winners in the coming months."
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Richard Powell, UKTECH