Contractors have the edge on BI projects

The IT specialisms of web development and fintech are not the only areas where contractors are currently hotter property than their permanent counterparts.

In fact, 54% of employers plan to hire a contractor to cope with a significant increase in workloads requiring Business Intelligence, compared to 33% who plan to hire a full-timer.

“As a result [of having new systems to implement], many firms will need to take on interim staff to manage these system overhauls, creating a buoyant market for contract workers,” said Robert Walters, which produced the finding.

Although the recruitment group was speaking before the Brexit vote, which has affected IT recruitment, its finding stems from the long-term intentions of 738 IT managers in a range of industries.

The survey found that the expectations on BI departments to delivers insights are growing rapidly – seeming to reflect the at least 10% hike in BI budgets year-on-year that almost a quarter of respondents have made.

“[We expect] employers [to] turn to BI contractors to deal with growing workloads,” said Robert Walters’ associate director of IT recruitment Ahsan Iqbal.

“However, as the role of BI departments continues to grow, employers may need to increase headcount of permanent staff to cope with the long-term increase in workload that will inevitably accompany this growth.”

For now though, freelance BI candidates have the edge thanks to a general shortage of suitably skilled full-timers, and not just in the rate-rich sector of financial services.

"[A] greater number of end-users are looking for contractors due to [an] increase in data-related projects along with a stop gap while they look for permanent members of staff," Mr Iqbal told ContractorUK. "The main sectors are financial services, retail and manufacturing and technology firms, [where] contractor rates have seen a slight increase [year-on-year]."