79% drop in Financial Services IT Contract offers in January

The Managing Director of Powerchex said in response to the figures \”The fact that the number of available opportunities for IT contractors fell by almost 80% in January is a worrying development in its own right. However, putting the latest figures into context, there are 32% fewer opportunities now than in January 2010 when the job market was really competitive. Many organisations appear to be delaying funding decisions to see what other companies are doing and make sure they are not over‐committing themselves in non‐core projects. This is not good news for IT contractors.\”

Only a few weeks ago a leading IT Recruitment Consultancy within the Banking Sector said that highly skilled IT Contractors in particular stand to profit in the near future with many Banks unable to hire permanent workers due to a lack of skills in the permanent market. And only last month the Monster Employment Index reported that the Information Technology sector had seen opportunities surge with annual growth of 34% reported.

The Director of IT Recruitment at Networkers International, James Smith, told the Recruiter at the time that “Our business has been fuelled by the financial markets by both the banking industry and insurance as well. We have been doing a lot of recruitment for those kinds of organisations. New projects are kicking off at the banks. In 2009, with the state of the economy, a lot of cuts were made but going into 2010 and now a lot of the banks and insurance houses have started new projects which they haven’t done for the last three or four years. Overall, we see continuation of steady growth for contract and permanent staff. The demand for permanent staff remains high and is higher than contract staff. Due to the lack of skills in the permanent market, there will be a shift in terms of growth on the contract front. As clients cannot find those permanent workers, they will get contractors in to work on a shorter-term basis or a project basis.

In January the Office of National Statistics (ONS) revealed that the UK Economy swung back into contraction in the final quarter of 2011; registering a 0.5% decline (a 0.5% increase had been predicted). At the time the ONS put the figures down to the coldest December in 100 years. The Chief Executive of the Recruitment & Employment Confederation, Kevin Green, said that “The economy is still predicted to grow by just over two per cent during 2011 but while this won\’t drive huge job creation, it will be enough for the jobs market to remain positive.”

Commonwealth Contractors

At Commonwealth Contractors we partner with OISC Registered Private Immigration Firms and Tier 2 Licensed Healthcare and IT Consultancies who may be prepared, where required, to sponsor an individual on a Tier 2 Visa (formerly UK Work Permit). If you are a highly skilled International professional and you would like to work in the UK Commonwealth Contractors can help. Our OISC Registered Partners specialise in Tier 1 General (formerly Highly Skilled Migrant Programme) visa applications and can assist those highly skilled individuals that either wish to apply or extend a Tier 1 General Visa.

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