Why Getting A Job In IT Should Be Easy, Even Though It’s Not

There has been a sharp growth in demand for permanent and temporary IT staff in August, according to The Report on Jobs, published by professional services companies KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation.

Expansion in demand

Adjusted for seasonal influences, the index for permanent IT staff increased from 68.4 in July to 70.4 in August. The latest figure represented the steepest increase in demand for permanent IT workers since August 1998 and was above the national average for all types of workers (68.2). By sub-sector, IT placed third out of nine in the demand for staff ‘league table’.

Temporary vacancies in the IT sector also rose at the quickest rate in 16 years, as the seasonally adjusted index scored 65.6 in August, up from 64.2 in July. That said, demand for temp workers in the IT sector remained below the UK-wide trend (68.7). IT and computing professionals registered the eighth-sharpest expansion of temp vacancies out of nine categories monitored by the survey.

Heath Jackson, partner in the CIO Advisory practice at KPMG, said: “The latest jobs figures for the technology sector mirrored the sunshine of August. The figures experienced the steepest expansion in demand for permanent workers since August 1998 whilst temporary vacancies also rose at the quickest rate in 16 years.

“But the gloomy weather towards the end of the month reflected the problem the industry is still facing – skills. The desperation to fill recruitment holes is leading to continued wage growth, which is creating a market that is both unsustainable and unrealistic. It’s a conundrum British business will have to solve quickly because if the job market stagnates the wider impact on performance will end up harming productivity.”

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