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General billings for contract workers grew for the ninth consecutive month in September, attributed, as always, to client's preferences for flexible workers in continuing uncertain business conditions. However, the rate of growth was at its weakest since February.
Agencies' margins on contract workers fell for the seventeenth consecutive month in September, at the sharpest rate of decline since the survey began in October 1997, with intense competition between agencies and weaker growth of temporary staff pay rates continuing to squeeze margins further.
General average hourly rates for contract workers continued to rise in September, reflecting shortages of certain skilled workers. However, the rate of growth of pay rates was again only modest and, in fact, eased to the slowest since February.
Contract workers' availability increased for the seventeenth successive month in September. Moreover, the rate of improvement picked up for the third consecutive month to the fastest since last December. In the majority of cases, agencies linked rising availability to a concurrent weakening in the rate of growth of demand for them.
Demand for IT contractors fell for the nineteenth month running in September, at the fastest rate of decline since January.
| "Indexes of demand for staff vary between 0 and 100 with a reading of exactly 50.0 signalling no change on the previous month. Readings above 50.0 signal an increase or improvement; readings below 50.0 signal, a decline or deterioration" | | Richard Harding, statistician for NTC Research which provides REC's figures, explains how the index measurements work |
IT ranked in bottom place out of eight other sectors, with an index rating of 39.4. Last year the freelance IT sector also trailed in last place, with an index rating of 35.4.
No IT skills were reported to be in short supply.
Permanent staff availability rose for the sixteenth month running in September, although the rate of improvement eased back slightly from the six-month high seen in August. Agencies attributed increased staff availability to further redundancies in both the manufacturing and service sectors.
Weakened demand for permanent employees caused the overall availability of staff to rise strongly again in September - the sixteenth successive monthly rise. Nevertheless, having hit a six-month high in August, the rate of improvement eased slightly.
Falling demand and sharply rising availability continued to place downward pressure on wages and salaries.
No improvement for IT freelancers in September |
The sharpest decline in demand for permanent staff was in the IT/Computing sector, which fell for the third successive month.
The permanent IT sector stayed in last position amongst the other seven sectors, recording an index rating of 38.8. Twelve months ago it registered 37.9.
No skills were reported to be in short supply in the permanent IT sector.
Tim Nicholson, Chief Executive of REC, said: "With hirers showing a preference for flexible workers in uncertain times, it is even more important that this avenue of employment is not blocked by the Agency Workers' Directive. As demand for staff reaches a nine-month low, it is too early to tell whether the cause of this is economic uncertainty or the impact of new regulations."
According to jobstats.co.uk, the latest average IT rates advertised are: £19 per hour for freelance workers and £36,400 per annum for employees.
The five most popular skills are:
Management 31.6 per cent - £22 per hour, £41,700 per annum
Support 25.1 per cent - £15 per hour, £33,100 per annum
Analyst 18.6 per cent - £20 per hour, £36,100 per annum
Design 17.7 per cent - £30 per hour, £38,800 per annum
Finance 16.9 per cent - £31 per hour, £45,000 per annum
The five most popular locations are:
London 27.7 per cent - £23 per hour, £43,600 per annum
City 5.6 per cent - £28 per hour, £47,600 per annum
Berkshire 4.1 per cent - £16 per hour, £39,800 per annum
Surrey 3.9 per cent - £15 per hour, £36,800 per annum
South East 3.2 per cent - £30 per hour, £40,500 per annum
(Note: Hourly rates refer to freelancers, annual figures to permanent workers)
The latest skills figures issued by iProfileStats show:
The top five IT skills by supply:
Rank | Skill | Freelance rate | Perm rate | | 1 | HTML | £29.12 | 27,289 | | 2 | UNIX | £36.87 | £34,095 | | 3 | Windows NT | £30.83 | £30,152 | | 4 | JAVA | £34.82 | £30,981 | | 5 | MS Access | £29.28 | £27,211 |
The top five IT skills by demand:
Rank | Skill | Freelance rate | Perm rate | | 1 | JAVA | £34.82 | £30,981 | | 2 | C++ | £33.48 | £30,526 | | 3 | UNIX | £36.87 | £34,095 | | 4 | MS SQL Server | £31.11 | £32,219 | | 5 | MS Visual Basic | £34.29 | £30,422 |
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Richard Powell, © Shout99.com 2002
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