IT jobs market for contractors increases by 5%

Demand for IT staff in Britain expanded in the third quarter, jobadswatch.co.uk found that the number of adverts for contractors on the UK’s major IT and multi-sector recruitment sites increased by 4.7%.

There has also been a small rise (1%) over the same period in adverts for full-time IT staff, the growth means IT recruitment has now been increasing steadily during the past nine quarters.

According to its findings, jobadswatch suggests that the upturn will continue, as contractors are usually the first in the door once hiring conditions have improved.

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation staffing body outlined feedback from recruiters who placed temporary staff in October, recruiters spoke of an “improvement in employers' optimism about their future hiring intentions”.

The jobadswatch dataset shows Inner London added the majority of new IT contracts in the third quarter (in contrast to the North West where IT contractor job adverts fell by 13%). AGILE was the fastest growing skill on a contract basis (relevant ads up 38%), followed by .Net (ads up 23%).

None of the IT skills in the sample were less sought-after over the period, however IT candidates looking for contract public sector work saw relevant ads decrease by 40%. Financial services added further IT contracts than a year ago, as did software houses - the second fastest growing end-user of IT contractors, after retailers (ads up 24%).