Jobs market to boom – but maybe not for contractors

The IT job market is finally pulling itself out of the doldrums, according to a new report – but while permanent staff can pop open the champagne, contractors would do well to stick to Asda value beans for a while longer.

Nearly 60 per cent of UK companies believe that they will have vacancies for permanent staff in the next year, according to a survey by recruitment company Elan.

The picture for contractors is also looking brighter – companies are employing 15 per cent more than they did at the same last year after three straight years of decline, according to the report, with a rise of around 10 per cent in empty positions in 2004 predicted by the employment agency.

Dan Bradshaw, sales director at Elan, said that this time the recovery looks to be sustainable. "It's getting better, but it's not going to get back to how it was", he told silicon.com. "In January, there was a blip where jobs picked up, but then the market dropped back to how it was. Now, it looks sustainable and the market is gathering momentum."

But before freelancers get too excited, they might want to take a look at their employers' attitudes to training. While companies are happy to pay out for their permanent staff to get new skills, they don't view their contractors as worth the same expense.

Around 85 per cent of permanent will get some formal training from their bosses, but only 10 per cent of contractors will be getting the same treatment.

Bradshaw said that it's not exactly an unexpected result. "Nobody has ever spent money on training contractors – as they see it, they don’t want to waste their money. It's very rare to see contractors trained – in their view, they're paying you too much as it is," he said.

It's not all bad news though, says Bradshaw – some areas are set to grow and grow for contractors. "If I was a contractor, I'd take a long hard look at network security", he told silicon.com, "It's an ongoing thing – clients are looking to upgrade on a continual basis, they're getting much more careful over who they let loose on their systems."