Hirers still splashing out on scarce IT skills

Businesses are throwing more and more money at scarce candidates in the IT sector as a way to bridge the mismatch between supply and demand, reveals a February staffing report.

In fact, despite a recent alert that clients will reach a point where they’ll refuse to “keep throwing money” at sought-after techies, last month saw the reverse, found the REC.

“The availability of skilled candidates remains a significant concern and businesses are already fiercely competing to secure top talent,” says REC’s latest Report on Jobs.

“This dynamic is driving significant salary growth in pockets of the market, such as the IT and engineering sectors, where the demand-supply mismatch is particularly prevalent.”

This mismatch is not new, but whereabouts in the market it can be seen is. Cyber Security, BMP and 3D Technology for example each joined the ‘scarce’ IT skills list in February.

That list also includes Digital Media, Video games, Sharepoint, .Net and SQL Server on a contract basis -- and Java, Sharepoint, SQL, Video games and .Net on a full-time basis.

As a result, and according to REC records, .Net has featured as a skill in short supply for 11 of the previous 13 months; Java has featured in 10 of them and SQL has featured in nine.

However “demand for staff is by no means universal across the [private and public] sectors,” believes Bernard Brown of KPMG, the co-author of Report on Jobs.

He said: “The recovery is being heavily driven by hiring activity by UK plc, while the public sector remains in a semi-stasis ahead of further anticipated cuts later in the year.”

Elsewhere in the report, the REC scores demand for IT/Computing workers at 61.6, with such a reading signalling stronger demand than a month ago (62.6) because it is above 50.0.