Demand for contracted IT personnel within the finance sector continued to rise between January and April 2005, according to online IT recruitment specialists CWJobs.co.uk. The latest CWJobs/SSL quarterly IT skills index reveals that vacancies increased by 11.26% in Q1, 2005, and by 105% since Q1 2004.
The figures continue to demonstrate the healthy growth of financial IT vacancies, cementing the sector’s position as the largest employer of IT personnel in the UK, with a 39% share of the recruitment market.
Employers view OFFICE, SQL, C and Java as the most wanted skills for permanent staff in the market while GUI, JScript, Cisco and Prince proved to be the least popular. The largest quarterly salary increases in the finance sector are for Operators (44%), Graduate Developer/Analyst Programmer (42%), PC Help Desk Support (29%) and Network Controllers (26%).
However, the results for permanent positions did not reflect the contractor growth. Although the sector saw a small decrease of 2.6% on Q4 figures, these numbers are significantly higher than other industries such as Manufacturing (-19.3%) and Communications (-8.46%).
Commenting on the statistics, Richard Nott, Sales Director at CW Jobs said:
Financial institutions are continuing to move the IT function offshore, which is affecting the growth of permanent positions available in the UK. However, the jobs market is still buoyant, with the financial sector remaining the most significant employer of IT staff. Demand for contract staff is continuing on last year’s upward trend as more and more projects are being commissioned.
Demand for contract IT staff in Finance sector continues to increase
IT jobs market demonstrates growth of 105% according to new CWJobs/SSL stats
