Firms face fight to keep hold of IT staff

Businesses are being warned they face a fight to keep hold of quality IT staff now that the grip on budgets has been loosened and demand has picked up.

Two separate market surveys released today by the British Chambers of Commerce and the Recruitment & Employment Confederation claim there is both a shortage of skilled IT workers and a lack of new talent coming onto the job market.

Dave Pye, MD of Spring technology staffing services, told silicon.com that in this climate businesses need to move faster on the recruitment of new staff and work smarter on the retention of existing employees.

"We are now seeing candidates going for two or three jobs at once so if we secure the right candidate for the client they need to make the decision quickly," he said.

And while money is still an important factor for IT staff, Pye said it is the working environment and other "soft" benefits that are now often key factors in the decision to stay or go.

"Customers are waking up to the fact that the total package is important now that they are having to entice people. Clearly the benefits are important and people are moving for the working environment and training, not for that extra two or three thousand pounds," he said.

Pye said many employers are also overlooking a huge of the job market when trying to recruit people with wider business skills

"The people they want with those softer skills are often older but they still want that young Java programmer with three years' experience," he said.

The strongest demand is currently in the financial services and public sectors and growth in demand for IT contractors is still outstripping that in the permanent staff market, according to Spring.

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