Demand for IT Contractors twice as strong as demand for Permanent Workers in Q1 2011

Key figures from the survey:

  • Total IT hiring still down 70% from its peak in 2007
  • Quarter 1 of 2011 saw a 11% increase in job postings for highly skilled contractors
  • Quarter 1 of 2011 saw a 5% increase in job postings for highly skilled permanent professionals
  • Alongside Oracle and .NET, C now accounts for 10% of all IT contracts
  • C++ Contractors have seen a 12% slump in demand since the fourth quarter of 2010

The report said that ‘the growth in the number of job ads should mean better job prospects for those IT professionals who suffered during the financial crisis. Contract rates started to improve in the first quarter of 2010 and have continued to rise since, with median rates in the latest quarter up by 2.1% compared with twelve months ago.”

Recently the President of the IT Recruitment Agency Volt said that functional roles such as Business Analysts and Project Managers were currently in great demand pointing to many companies kicking on with new projects. In terms of skills technologies such as Java / J2EE, .Net, Android and Silverlight were reported to be hot skills to have as companies push forward with mobile application projects.

Tom Daley of Volt said that “The demand for highly-skilled IT professionals has picked up quite a bit, albeit somewhat unevenly across our geographic markets. We’re seeing clients applying a careful and methodical approach to requesting IT talent in that they are looking for very specialised skill sets related to emerging technologies. Mobile application developers, so Java/J2EE specialists, .Net developers and Android and Silverlight techies are cited as the ‘hottest’ IT candidates, as were VMware virtual app developers. We’re also seeing a higher demand for functional roles such as business analysts and project managers. This usually indicates an increase in the amount of projects being scoped out and we anticipate this will lead to further increases in demand for IT talent as these projects are implemented.”

Commonwealth Contractors

At Commonwealth Contractors we partner with OISC Registered Private Immigration Firms and Tier 2 Licensed Healthcare and IT Consultancies who may be prepared, where required, to sponsor an individual on a Tier 2 Visa (formerly UK Work Permit). If you are a highly skilled International professional and you would like to work in the UK Commonwealth Contractors can help. Our OISC Registered Partners specialise in Tier 1 General (formerly Highly Skilled Migrant Programme) visa applications and can assist those highly skilled individuals that either wish to apply or extend a Tier 1 General Visa.

For more Information call Commonwealth Contractors now on 0330 390 9021 or Submit your Details and we will get right back to you. Please see other areas of the Commonwealth Contractors site for interesting articles on tax, immigration and contracting.

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