The most recent figures compiled by jobadswatch.co.uk show that during the second quarter of 2011 the IT jobs market for permanent staff continued to expand. Between the first quarter and the second quarter of 2011 there were 2.3% more jobs advertised, this is the eighth consecutive quarter that has seen increased demand. The rate of improvement however, is slightly lower than that recorded in the first quarter of 2011 when vacancies were up by 5.3%, and the overall levels are still down when compared with the peaks of 2007.
One of the benchmark job functions within technology is for software developers. Last quarter developers (all grades) made up over 39% of all IT jobs advertised. This is followed by the design and project management group which makes up 20% of the total. Here demand is only up by 1.6%, though it was up over 9% in the previous quarter. Elsewhere demand for support and networking staff is up by 4.8% and 3.1% respectively.
Historically contractors are the first to be discarded and the first to be employed when economic conditions improve. This is a good indicator on the general state of technology recruitment. Over the last quarter there has been an increase of 3.3% in the number of advertisements for contract technology staff. This is less than the growth of 11.1% recorded in the first quarter of the year but still indicates demand is growing and business and technology projects are being initiated.
Some of the highlights for Q2:
- Demand for permanent IT jobs up by 2.3%
- Contract vacancies up by 3.3%
- Vacancies in the public sector down by 1%.
Key salary trends
Advertised permanent salaries reflected the state of current employment levels, with average pay in advertisements increasing by just 0.8% compared with a year ago. These general figures tend to hide the wide variations seen in salaries dependent on the job function, region, business sector and software skills. In particular, developers working in finance in the south with experience of C# and .NET can expect to see salaries that are 37% higher than the equivalent job in manufacturing in the north, a huge difference.
Contract rates started to improve in the first quarter of 2010 and have continued to rise since then, with median rates in the latest quarter up by 1.8% compared with twelve months ago.
Key IT skills trends
The demand for business and technology staff is partly driven by the need for specialised software skills, and how these are applied by different business sectors. The Microsoft development tools of C# and .NET have seen demand continue to rise with respectively 2.5% and 2.9% more jobs being advertised quarter on quarter. Other newer skills such as Agile are seeing major interest from employers with vacancies up by 9.3%. This is complemented further down the table with other new skills such as VMware and Scrum up by 1.8% and 6.7%. More traditional skills such as C++ however see demand down by 10.7%.
Contract skills also show an increase in demand for Agile with vacancies up by 3.6%. Elsewhere contractors with C# and .NET skills are looking at in increase of more than 5% in the count of jobs advertised.
Key regional findings
The main movement in technology recruitment across the various regions over the past quarter has highlighted the following:
- 76.5% of all permanent technology jobs advertised were in the southern and western regions of England, leaving the remaining regions of the midlands, north and Scotland with just 23.5%. Two years ago, the split was 69.7% of jobs in the south and 30.3% in the north. Each quarter for the past two years has seen the split increase in favour of the south
- In the south, 1,340 more IT jobs were advertised whilst the midlands and north managed only an additional 77 jobs. However this is the third consecutive quarter where job counts in the midlands/north have increased. Prior to this, jobs in these regions had been in decline
- The number of jobs in the London area as a whole is up by 2.3% on the first quarter 2011. Compared with twelve months ago, the figures for inner and outer London show an increase of 31.6% and 15.2% respectively. This indicates that the growth in jobs seen over the last six months of 2010 rapidly slowed. The southern region continues to be the largest area for technology employment with jobs increasing at a rate of 3.9%
- The northern region saw jobs declining for the first time in over twelve months with 0.7% fewer jobs in the northwest and 1.6% less jobs in the north east. Scotland mirrors this trend with 1.5% fewer jobs than in the first quarter 2011.
- Contract vacancies continue to show a north/south split with 82.3% of all vacancies advertised in the south.
In general the quarterly movement in jobs show the London area up by 3.0%, the midlands by 4.2%, but with the north down by 4.1% and Scotland down by 3.6%.
Key results by business sector
The main highlights that have affected various business sectors are as follows:
- Recruitment in the finance sector recovered from the poor performance during the last quarter of 2010 when the number of technology related vacancies actually fell. Since then, the situation has improved somewhat with 2.2% more jobs advertised during the second quarter of 2011. Since the end of 2010, the recovery has seen an increase of 8.3% in the number of jobs on offer. This effectively brings recruitment back to the same level as the third quarter of 2010. The financial market for jobs has historically been subject to more volatility in recruitment than other sectors
- Software houses and outsource consultancies are the biggest recruiters of technology personnel in the UK and during this quarter made up over 63% of all permanent jobs advertised. Demand in this sector is up by 3.2% on the previous quarter. This may well be due to higher levels of outsourcing coming from the finance and public sectors as they cut back on recruitment
- Elsewhere there are more jobs being advertised for employment in the retail sector with vacancies up by 2.8%, followed by media up by 2.4% and manufacturing by 1.6%
- The impact of the Government’s policy on public sector recruitment has resulted in vacancies falling by 18.4% in the third quarter of 2010, by 31.1% in the fourth quarter, by 1.0% in the first quarter of 2011 and by 2.0% in the latest quarter.
Further outsourcing may be evident in this sector as more public sector cuts are announced.
In the contract market, the main driving force in recruitment is also from software houses and financial organisations making up 46.7% and 36.0% of the market respectively. This time round software house recruitment for contractors is up by 3.8%, and finance by 3.7%. Elsewhere media recruitment is up by 2.9%, retail by 1.7% and manufacturing by 1.9%. Public sector use of contractors seems to have resumed with 2.9% more contracts available, while jobs are down by almost 50% on last year.
In summary, the increase in demand for technology staff continues for both permanent and contract staff, though the role type, location and business sector strongly affect the demand, rates and salaries. It appears that technology is a good sector to work in during the current economic uncertainty.
This commentary is based on information from cwjobs.co.uk/jobadswatch.co.uk
