Job market decline has ceased, says Jobstats

Jobstats, the IT market stats site, has reported the decline in the IT job market has reached a halt.

Nick Wells, the site's founder, has been studying the market and providing in-depth figures for IT professionals for the past two years.

He said figures had shown the usual post-Christmas 'bounce' of opportunities for IT workers in January, but noted February had maintained the same level of demand, where historically it had dropped off.

Although this 'stability' represents only a taster of the beginning of the year in terms of outward forecast, Mr Wells tentatively believes it promises better things.

He said: "It's a bit early to call this the bottom of the market and there have been false dawns before but last year the rate of decline had slowed and the past two months have shown modest growth. There are still plenty of reasons for pessimists to worry: a looming war; a weakening general economy and a house price bubble. But there is always something to worry about and maybe the war will be short and successful, maybe house prices will deflate gradually without burning too many people."

The growth in advertisements for freelance workers has also continued, according to Mr Wells.

"We've seen solid growth over the past six months and we are now back to the same level of contract job adverts that we saw last May. The growth in demand for contractors has been matched by a gentle rise in rates over the past three months. It's not exactly like the market is going crazy; what we are seeing is a slight pickup at the bottom and middle of the market. The top end is holding level, not rising though and we've seen ripples like this before over the past year."

The number of permanent job adverts has also been holding up, according to Jobstats figures; with salaries continuing to fall but at a slower rate than the freelancing sector in recent months.

Simon Church, a Manager at Triage Contracting - the freelancer-specialist agency with the highest ranking in this week's Jobstats report - explained how his agency had bucked the downturn.

"The supply chain is being consolidated so Preferred Supplier Lists and Preferred Supplier Agreements are being reduced. The customers are in a stronger position. When a customer says they are going from 10 suppliers down to six then down to four, then two, then one major vendor, as has been happening recently - we have been strong enough financially to be that final company because clients rely on us being here long-term.

"We currently have a large number of contractors working across all vertical markets with more and more demand coming out of the public sector too," he added.

"We haven't seen any peaks or troughs recently, the market is continuing to bounce along on the seabed."

According to Jobstats, the average rates advertised for freelancers are: £21 per hour and £35,400 per annum for employees.

The five most popular skills are:

Management 32.9 per cent - £23 per hour, £40,200 per annum;

Support 26.7 per cent - £15 per hour, £31,700 per annum;

Analyst 18.9 per cent - £23 per hour, £35,300 per annum;

Design 17.3 per cent - £28 per hour, £38,500 per annum;

SQL 16.4 per cent - £27 per hour, £34,000 per annum.

The five most popular locations are:

London 28.9 per cent - £21 per hour, £40,800 per annum;

City 5.9 per cent - £23 per hour, £48,900 per annum;

Berkshire 4.5 per cent - £16 per hour, £36,700 per annum;

South East 3.6 per cent - £29 per hour, £39,600 per annum;

Surrey 3.4 per cent - £17 per hour, £35,100 per annum.