Public sector hoovers up contractors

For the first time, the public sector has overtaken finance as the UK's biggest employer of contractors.

The figures for the two sectors are close - 20.5 per cent of contractors are now working in the public sector as opposed to 19.9 per cent working in the financial industry, which has traditionally been the UK's biggest employer of contractors.

The public sector has been aggressively pulling in the contractors. Only six months ago, it employed just 12.4 per cent of IT contractors, according to specialist accountancy firm giant group.

The MD of giant, Matthew Brown, puts the recent heavy hiring of contractors down to the need for many organisations to meet the government deadlines of 2005 for online services and e-government.

Figures from the Office of National Statistics show that the public sector now accounts for 20 per cent of UK jobs, after an increase of 162,000 last year.

In another change from tradition, the firm's CCI (Contractor Confidence Index) shows that contractors are more optimistic and are moving more quickly between jobs.The number of contractors waiting more than 90 days between contracts has almost halved, from 15 per cent to eight per cent.

Brown said: "Head counts were really savaged during the downturn, at one point leaving over a quarter of contractors out of work. Now demand has picked up."

Currently, 66 per cent of them expect earnings to increase this year, as opposed to only 45 per cent six months ago.

While the contractors may currently be piling in to the public sector, more of them (26 per cent) think that the financial sector will be offering more job opportunities than any other sector in the next 12 months.

Less surprising results of the survey are that the two top ranking motivators for contractors are income and work-life balance. The lowest-ranked motivators, out of six, are responsibility and employer/brand.