Pay for UK IT freelancers working in financial services is finally on the up, reversing a four year decline, reveals the Association of Technology Staffing Companies (ATSCo) 4th Quarter 2003 iProfile Skills Survey, the most comprehensive of its kind in the industry.
According to the ATSCo research, IT freelancers in the key financial services sector saw their pay increase 2% in the last six months of 2003. IT workers in tech companies made even greater gains, enjoying average pay rises of between 6% and 9%.*
Comments Ann Swain, ATSCo Chief Executive: Financial services pay rates have lagged behind the upturn in other sectors, particularly government. It now seems as if we are seeing the first glimmer of recovery in the sector that fell the furthest in the stock market crash.
ATSCoís latest research also shows that unemployment among freelancers has fallen by over a third during the last six months of 2003 from 26% to 17%.
City institutions scaled IT departments down to minimal operational requirements during the downturn so any upturn is going to feed through to job creation fairly quickly.
As contractor unemployment falls wages should continue their upward trend as the pool of reserve labour dries up.
IT departments now need to invest in infrastructure. The bottom line is the average corporate PC and its software is reaching the twilight of its useful life.
IT spending by financial institutions will also be underpinned by the start of the massive and complex task of complying with the new Basel 2 risk management regulations says ATSCo.**
Explains Swain; Preliminary activities such as business impact planning will soon give way to full scale IT implementation.
Pay for datawarehouse architects up 35%. According to the ATSCo 4th Quarter 2003 iProfile Skills Survey hourly rates for datawarehouse architects rose 35%, from 40 to 54 in the last half of 2003.
Ann Swain says that in the financial services sector regulatory programmes are forcing companies to look at the data integrity of their IT systems. Basel 2, Sarbanes-Oxley and international accounting standards have all made data management a priority.
Says Ann Swain; The strong demand for datawarehouse architects demonstrates that double digit wage inflation is still a reality for certain niche IT skills.
She adds; The ëmust haveí skill is a fluid and scarce commodity in IT and finding those staff is never easy. Allocating human resources effectively is a challenge businesses must rise to if they are to satisfy their immediate requirements.
Tech companies
IT freelancers in electronics, software development and aerospace saw their pay increase 9%, 6% and 5% respectively in the second half of 2003.
ATSCo says that with six technology flotations in 2003 compared with two in 2002 and just one in 2001, there is compelling evidence that the freeze on the financing of IT companies has begun to thaw.
The growing number of tech listings is encouraging news for IT staff who are already seeing the benefits in their pay packets. Most recent tech flotations are already profitable, setting them apart from those of the late 90s tech bubble.
* Electronics, aerospace and software vendors
** $1.9bn this year according to analysts Datamonitor
Healthy outlook for City IT staff as pay rises for first time in four years
IT freelancer unemployment falls by a third, pay of datawarehouse experts leaps by 35%