Irish IT hiring is still hot, in both the island’s capital cities. According to a recent
BusinessWeek article, Northern Ireland now has 15,000 IT employees. And Dublin IT recruiters say financial services employers have lifted their IT hiring freezes.

That’s not to say it’s all rosy. Ailish McDermott, IT consultant with Brightwater in Belfast, says the credit crunch has had a “slight” impact on jobs and pay for programmers.

Her colleague, Hugh McCarthy, team leader for IT recruitment Dublin, says candidates can’t afford to be as “picky” as they were a year ago.

According to BusinessWeek, Northern Ireland is the top region in the UK for investment in financial services software development, and attracted 35% of all new business in the past five years. McDermott says financial software firm Fidessa wants to fill up to 150 positions by the year’s end. And payment processing company CyberSource is looking for Java developers for e-payment systems.

People with .NET and Java skills and three or four years’ experience can earn around 27k a year working in Belfast, while someone with six or seven years’ experience can earn around 35k. Bonuses are limited to a few thousand pounds a year.

In Dublin, McCarthy says major banks have lifted hiring freezes. Mid-level niche positions in areas like derivatives that require skills in .NET or J2EE pay €55k to €60k a year. An experienced software architect with eight to 10 years’ experience can earn €80k to €100k a year. Both positions would attract bonuses of 10% or 15%.

McCarthy adds that a local skills shortage is being fill by a few daily commuters from Ulster but mostly from Eastern Europe and India.