UK
It may be a blip, but it seems after months of cutting back on technology contractors, financial services firms are hiring them again.
Figures from financial staff screening firm Powerchex suggest the number of job offers to IT contractor job offers swelled by 30% in January compared with December. Less promisingly, they were 68% down on the same period in 2008.
Simon Walker, managing director of recruiters Project Partners denies that year-on-year figures are quite so dire. He says banks’ appetite for IT contractors is the same now as it was in 2008.
“With consolidation in the financial sector, part-nationalisation of banks and new regulatory requirements we’ve seen an upswing in demand for project managers, change managers and programme managers,” he says. “Because of the finite nature of the work, the banks are looking to take on contractors.”
James Richmond, sales director at financial IT recruiters Cititec confirms that contractor demand is ‘stable’.
“There’s still a healthy demand for highly-skilled software developers around Java, C# and C++,” he says. “And niche skill-sets around trading systems are still required. However, we have seen a drop off in support and infrastructure roles as more people are being redeployed internally.”
Ann Swain, chief executive of the Association of Professional Staffing Companies [formerly known as the Association of Technology Staffing Companies] says banks still need contractors to complete projects. “Sadly, it might only be a short-term phenomenon,” she laments.
No – the jokers above are just trying to talk up the market.
Project Partners are a very reputable firm and should be taken note of – no one can “talk up” this market. It should come as no suprise that contractors ae being taken on – flexible, not on the books as FTE and let’s face it, despite what has happened, money is not really a limitation in the industry – the bonus pool shrank only marginally this year. Stand by for politicians in Europe and the US to start demanding large scale change, and having paid out bonuses, the banks can’t claim they can’t afford massive change – it will be a contractors jamboree out there and I predict serious upswings in contractor rates because the industry has shot itself in the foot again by reducing its’ own talent pool. IT contracting will be the new “Front Office”.
Go and read the contractor websites – or look at jobstats.co.uk if you want some proof.
“Project Partners are a very reputable firm” … errr who told you that ?
So, um, doesn’t jobstats show that the demand for contractors as a proportion of the workforce has increase to 28% as at Feb, which is near September 2007 levels? Doesn’t this reinforce the point?
Total demand is nearly down tothe 2003 dot com crash demand levels. Read the graph on their front page.