IT contractors benefit from market strength

Average salaries have increased by 2% to £36,818 and since the final quarter of 2009 the number of IT vacancies has been on the rise.

Although there is an increase in the number of advertised jobs, there is also an increase in candidates. In fact the rise is a significant 36% but some of this increase is thought to be due to individuals looking to change jobs.

IT contractors with skills in .NET, Java and PHP are particularly in demand as are SEO specialists.

Gartner, the IT research organisation, predicts that the improvement will continue for the remainder of 2010. They expect IT spending to increase by 5.7% to £535 billion this year.

Mergers and acquisitions in the IT sector are increasing and this spells good news for limited company contractors. These deals are by nature temporary and the outlook for the coming year is positive. In fact Ernst and Young believe the mergers and acquisition market may see robust growth.

Applications and content accounted for 40 merger deals during the first quarter of this year, nearly 30 deals involved social networking and almost 20 deals were associated with cloud computing.

Mobile technology and innovation surrounding information are continuing to produce new opportunities in the technology sector and companies with significant reserves of cash are in the ideal position to do deals.

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