2010 sees overall growth in IT recruitment plus 5% salary increase

2010 sees overall growth in IT recruitment plus 5% salary increase

· Retail sector saw greatest demand for IT personnel

· C suffers 4% drop in demand as Agile and Vmware opportunities emerge

As the IT recruitment market continues to stabilise, data from specialist IT recruitment website CWJobs.co.uk and JobAdsWatch.co.uk reveals that demand for IT professionals has now increased for six consecutive quarters.

Despite double dip concerns, 2010 saw steady growth in demand for IT personnel, with an 8% increase in the second quarter, followed by 8% in the third and 5% in the final quarter of the year. However, despite the recent upturn, job levels are still down by almost half the pre-recession levels seen in 2007 and 2008.

In the last two quarters of 2010 a number of emerging skills were increasing in demand including project development process Agile and virtualisation infrastructure platform Vmware, opening up further opportunities for skilled up IT jobseekers. Other additions included development tool Scrum used with Agile and Google’s mobile device operating system Android.

Richard Nott, Website Director at CWJobs comments, “last year the IT recruitment market really showed its resilience in the face of numerous challenges while the economy was still in recovery. The industry is evolving, particularly where emerging skills such as Agile Scrum are increasing in demand. As IT professionals continue to adapt their skills and experience to this ever-changing environment, they will remain in a strong position as 2011 brings them a new set of challenges.”

SQL, C, C#, .NET and SQL Server remained the top five skills most in demand for permanent IT jobseekers, with SQL, C, C#, JAVA and ORACLE being the most sought after skills for contract IT jobseekers throughout 2010. C was the only skill to suffer a decline in demand with jobs down by 4%.