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UK tech job market ‘cautiously optimistic’

Munir Kotadia ZDNet

Published: 28 Jul 2003 14:54 BST

The IT jobs market in the UK improved slowly between April and June this year, but not if you live in Wales or the West of England, where the number of contract jobs fell by 20 percent and the number of permanent vacancies shrank by 12 percent.

In a survey by CWJobs, an online resource for IT workers, Central London was the best place to find an IT job. During the three-month period, Londoners saw a 17 percent rise in the number of permanent jobs and a massive 46 percent increase in contract vacancies. Outer London experienced a small decrease in advertised jobs -- a 2 percent fall in contract workers and a 3 percent fall in permanent positions.

However, CWJobs pointed out that Central London has bounced back after being the only region in the UK to see a fall in the number of vacancies between January and March of this year.

After Central London, contract workers found the North West of England was the best place to find a job, where the number of vacancies increased by 35 percent.

Shobhan Gajjar, Web site director at CWJobs, believes the results can be explained by growing confidence in the economy, which has triggered some investment in new IT projects. "Demand is especially strong for high-end project managers and business analysts in the NHS and local authorities," he said in a statement. "As always, the permanent picture is more mixed but taken overall, the figures allow room for cautious optimism."

According to CWJobs, SQL and Unix skills are most in demand for both contract and permanent positions, while Oracle is favoured by employers looking for permanent staff.