IT SKILLS DEMANDED!

IT Consultants
Demand for skilled IT workers has reached a six-year high and is predicted to boom in 2008 with growth rates of between 6 and 10 per cent and weekly salaries increasing by an average of £100, according to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC).

In their report, the REC suggests that this demand has been spearheaded by an increased corporate investment in IT as the number of organisations move more of their business functions online, in addition to the increasing number of staff who opt to work remotely from home.

The UK Government, for instance, currently spends over £15 billion per year outsourcing IT staff to carry out general day-to-day tasks – the equivalent of twenty new Wembley Stadiums every year - because of a lack of internal IT skills.

Such is the demand for IT staff that salaries rose by three per cent during the last quarter of 2007 making the average salary £40,300. However, while the outlook is positive for IT jobs, the industry itself is seeing a deficit of entrant's year on year.

Indeed, a report published by the British Computer Society (BCS) warned that "demand for skilled IT professionals will be frustrated by a 25 per cent shortfall of computer science graduates by 2009 and...public services will be hit more heavily than private companies". And, since 2002, there has been a 50 per cent drop in applications for computer-related degrees.

So with less than 20,000 newly qualified IT graduates emerging from university each year, the BCS anticipates that IT staff with high-end software skills will become hot property in 2008.