Demand for IT staff rises as business confidence improves

Demand for permanent and temporary IT staff grew during November as renewed confidence in market conditions led to investments in new IT projects.

New figures from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG use a points system calculated from the percentages of respondents reporting an improvement, no change or a decline.

The indices vary between 0 and 100, and a reading of exactly 50 signals no change on the previous month.

IT staff employed on a permanent basis rose from 54.2 points in October to 56.6 in November. This represents a slight drop from November 2009, when the figure was 60.1.

Figures for temporary staff showed an increase from 49.6 points in October to 53.2 in November, but this was down on the same month in 2009 when it was 55.8 points.

Dave Pye, executive committee member of the REC technology sector group, believes that the increase in demand underlines a returning confidence after the government's talk of cutbacks and spending reductions.

"There seems to be a consensus that the impact to the economy of the Comprehensive Spending Review was not as bad as feared, and that people are more willing to place their budgets in new projects," he said.

"While it's not a huge increase at the moment, we expect to see it increase into 2011, particularly in the private sector. The public sector is still more on the cautious side, waiting to see how things play out."

Pye added that there are likely to be more opportunities for IT workers as a result of this shift in mentality.

"A lot of people have looked to stay in their jobs during the tough times. But now that there is more money going into IT budgets, there could be more openings coming up so staff may look to move," he said.

"Pay is not increasing so dramatically, though, but there is a lot more buy-back in organisations that want to hang on to staff when they announce their intention to leave, as they realise the value of having trained staff."

Pye added that there could even be a rise in head-hunting for skilled workers.

A new report from CompTIA claimed that many companies will expand their IT departments throughout 2011, and that more people seeking work could allay IT chiefs' fears of not being able to find enough skilled workers.