Demand for IT contractors increased during the last three months while demand for permanent staff fell for the first time since 2009, according to figures from recruitment website CWJobs.co.uk.
Vacancies for contractors increased 3% during the second three-month period this year while permanent jobs dropped 1%. According to CWJobs, this could be the result of businesses hiring staff to work during the busy Olympic period. This is supported by the fact that the south of England accounted for 90% of the jobs advertised.
“The increase in IT contractor vacancies shows that businesses have been taking the relevant steps to prepare for London 2012. The role IT specialists will play in delivering the Games this summer should not go unnoticed. As in everything we do, a robust IT infrastructure is the backbone of any operation,” said Richard Nott, website director at CWJobs.
“A significant number will have been recruited just to work on the opening ceremony for example – that’s before you take into consideration those extra hands needed for traffic management systems and broadcasting images and videos of the athletes in action.”
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The contract skills showing as being in greatest demand are .Net, with vacancies up by 3.3%, followed by C# up by 3.1%. Demand for agile, Java and SQL skills have seen an increase of 3.2%, 3.1% and 3.1% respectively.
While vacancies in the retail sector did not change, the media sector - with heavy Olympic broadcasting demands - had the biggest increase (4.6%), while software house recruitment was up by 3.1%, finance by 2.5%, manufacturing by 3.4% and public sector by 2.3%.
