Contractors' Questions: Which freelance IT skills are reliably hot?

Contractor’s Question: When demand picks up once the general election is out the way, which IT skills will be reliably ‘hot,’ or are hot right now on a contract basis and I’m just not seeing it? Work usually picks up for me after Easter but I’d like to know where the real action is and why.

Expert’s Answer: The financial services industry is booming the most, with Business Analysts, Big Data specialists and Infrastructure Engineers in demand.

Firstly then, Big Data specialists whose rates range between £400-500 per day

There has been significant demand for professionals with these skills for some time now, but it’s started to intensify relatively recently. This is because firms are realising how to utilise the mountains of data they possess to their advantage. Specialists are now being used to inform business decisions and anyone who can harness and gather data effectively is highly sought-after

Secondly, Business Analysts whose rates range between £400-500 per day.

Once data has been gathered it’s left to these professionals to analyse it and work out how to rework business processes and operations to include data moving forward. Organisations are increasingly looking to get ahead of their competitors and individuals in these roles are able to identify areas where this could potentially happen.

Third is Infrastructure Engineers, whose rates range between £300-500 per day. There would be no need for the previous two skills/roles without infrastructure engineers. Infrastructure Engineers design and develop infrastructure that allows data to be captured and analysed and are sought-after as a result of the growing need to maximise the use of big data.

In addition to these three, there has also been significant demand for Mobile specialists following changes to Google’s algorithms. As a result, having a mobile-friendly site has gone from being an optional extra to a must-have for businesses. Experts in this field are likely to have a number of job and contract offers to choose from. Web developers and User Experience specialists have also continued to be highly pursued.

The expert was Rob White, a specialist in technology recruitment at Venn Group.