IT contractor demand grows despite no September bounce

September met its forecast of being buoyant for IT contractors, albeit not because it played its traditional role of being the ‘bounce back’ month after the summer holidays.

In fact, although demand for IT contractors still grew in the four weeks since August, the growth in new temporary opportunities for technologists relaxed, from 62.1 to 60.0.

Recorded by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation, the slower growth rate for IT contractors in September is mainly due to the growth rate in August being atypically high.

Usually a time for candidates, agents and end-user staff to take holidays, this August bucked the trend, returning the highest REC index score in IT contractor demand for over two years.

Some of that demand was fuelled by not enough permanent IT staff to go around -- an issue that remained last month, in terms of both significance and size.

Specifically, there were eight shortage areas of IT employees in the peak demand month for IT contractors of August, and there are still eight, shows REC’s latest Report on Jobs.

The current eight are; Automation Testers, C#, Digital, Gaming, Java, UI/UX Design, IT and Security. And in line with an alert by Harvey Nash, security is scarce on a contract basis too.

Two other types of IT contractor also proved difficult for REC agencies to fill in September for temporary contracts; IT generalists and contractors with Security Clearance.

Meanwhile, a London-specific IT skill shortages list kept by REC agents struggling to fill positions in the capital features Gaming, Information Security, Cyber Security and Digital.