Over half of worldwide senior IT executives are more confident about their employment prospects than they were a year ago, according to a survey by Eurocom Worldwide.

More than two thirds of the 350 senior IT professionals questioned expect to increase IT department staffing levels over the coming 12 months, up from 63 per cent last year. Just six per cent predicted a decline in employment.

Almost half of respondents reported finding it increasingly difficult to recruit IT staff, up from 38 per cent last year.

Such findings are in line with a recent study carried out by the National Computing Centre which indicated that the IT skills shortage had increased from a 4.2 per cent shortfall last year to 6.8 per cent this year, the highest in the past decade.

"Challenges such as credit fall-outs and global employment transfer may be real, but technology companies continue to show business growth and jobs creation," said Mads Christensen, network director at Eurocom Worldwide.

The survey suggests that software engineers are in most demand, and that more than half of respondents reported difficulties in recruiting such staff.

Tech manufacturing and IT services jobs, meanwhile, are being exported to lower cost centres such as China, India and Central and Eastern Europe.

Nearly two thirds indicated that their country was losing IT manufacturing jobs, while half reported a loss of IT services jobs.