IT vacancies in software Houses and consultancies saw tremendous growth between January and March 2004 according to the latest statistics from the CWJobs/SSL quarterly IT skills survey. This is the second consecutive quarter that jobs in the UKís software houses and consultancies have gone up, with permanent vacancies increasing by 29% and contract jobs up by 34% during Q1 2004.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, software houses are leading the recovery in terms of IT job vacancy numbers. 28,356 permanent jobs were advertised between January and March 2004, 39% more than the finance sector which was responsible for the second highest number of vacancies. software houses and consultancies also advertised 5404 contract IT jobs during this period -a staggering 75% more than the finance sector.
In terms of the rate of growth of IT vacancies across different UK industry sectors, software houses and consultancies also performed above the UK average January and March 2004. Permanent jobs saw a 29% increase in advertised jobs compared to the UK average of 26%, while temporary vacancies were up by 34% compared to the national average of 28%. The public sector experienced the highest rate of growth in permanent IT vacancies during Q1 2004 with a 37% increase and the retail and distribution sector lead the way in contract jobs during the same period with a 38% hike in vacancies advertised.
Overall, the past 12 months have set a positive trend for software houses with the number of advertised permanent vacancies 24% higher than Q1 2003 and temporary vacancies 61% greater than the previous year.
The most popular skills for permanent software house IT staff between January and March 2004 were SQL, Java and Oracle. Average salaries for developers with these skills during Q1 were 34,000 for SQL, 35,000 for Java and 35,000 for Oracle. The top three required skills for IT contractors in software houses were Oracle, Office and SQL.
Commenting on the statistics, Richard Nott, Sales Director at CWJobs said:
ìThe IT sector as a whole has seen significant growth since Q4 2003, software companies in particular have witnessed an increase with vacancies rising dramatically between Q4 2003 and Q1 2004. This has created great opportunities for IT professionals looking for work within software companies. We would expect to see software companies leading the way with IT vacancies and for this demand to remain strong for the rest of the year.î
Software house vacancies rocket with permanent vacancies up by 29%
CWJobs/SSL statistics show that software house IT jobs are on the up again