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The report says there have been significant increases in the market value of key skills since September.
It identifies the top five skills as: C++, Java, MS SQL Server, MS Visual Basic and Unix.
The skill sets have experienced a 10 per cent increase in annual salaries and 14 per cent increase in hourly freelance rates, ATSCo and iProfileSkills say.
Ann Swain, ATSCo's Chief Executive, said: "Sentiment is still fragile and nobody wants to forecast a false dawn but ATSCo members have reported an upturn in the placement of both freelancers and permanent staff in recent months.
"These results, along with the recent recovery in share value of recruitment companies, may indicate the first tentative signs of a recovery in confidence following the recent economic slowdown. Job cuts over the last two years had pared IT departments down to the bone so any pick up in, say, investment banking or 3G mobile activity is going to feed through very quickly."
| "Freelancers are usually the first into and the first out of a recession" | | ATSCo's Ann Swain |
According to iProfileSkills, the upward trend is in sharp contrast to the decline in earnings over the previous year. In September, it said the total decrease in value of the skills listed since January 2002 was 20 per cent for permanent workers and 26 per cent for freelancers.
In the first nine months of 2002 an average of almost £10,000 per annum had been wiped off earnings for salaried staff and £10 per hour in a contract role, the researchers said.
IProfileSkills said that since September earnings have bounced back with contract roles regaining an average of almost +£5 per hour.
Ann Swain added: "Freelancers are usually the first into and the first out of a recession."
IT professionals in permanent positions have regained an average of +£3,000 per annum, according to the report.
Alex Charles, Director of iProfileStats, said "Over the last few months we've had reports of pockets of recovery in most of the major skill areas due to companies starting projects that had previously been put on hold. This is reflected in current pay increases for contract and permanent staff. It is, however, probably still too early to predict a more sustained recovery."
Despite the findings of the joint report, there remains strong scepticism from other quarters of the IT market of a possible recovery in 2003.
In its pre-six-monthly market analysis report, research house, Ovum, recently called talks of a rebound in the European IT market in 2003 'misleading' and expressed concerns that IT industry decision makers would base business plans for 2003 on 'over-optimistic forecasts.'
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Richard Powell, © Shout99.com 2002
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