Demand for contractors slipping?

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The worsening economy could spell trouble for the IT industry, as data shows a fall in demand for contractors – and this was before the bottom fell out of the stock market.

In its latest bulletin, e-skills UK has laid out data from earlier this year, which suggested that demand for permanent jobs was staying strong – but not for contractors, who saw a drop of 11 per cent.

“The most striking observation is the apparent decline in the number of programming jobs,” the report said. “Whether due to changes in job titling or otherwise, this is the only group of permanent ICT staff for which demand has fallen, with vacancy numbers dropping from over 1,600 positions in [first quarter of 2006] to around 1,200 in the first quarter of 2008.”

The report also looked at job training, finding that 27 per cent of IT workers across the UK had training in the previous 13 weeks. However, only 23 per cent of those aged over 55 had been given training, compared with 35 per cent of workers under 24.

In addition, telecoms staff were the most likely to get training (at 35 per cent), with IT strategy staff coming in last (at 24 per cent.)

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