Essex Needs More IT Professionals

As far as the IT sector is concerned the economy is on the rise once again, the computer and telecommunications industry is in good health according to the leading IT contractor news sites.

There has been such a rapid growth in demand for IT contractors across the South East, Essex and London that many firms have had to seek migrant workers. It seems that Essex and England just do not have enough professional IT workers to fill the gaps right now.

IT has always been an excellent area to work in, with high demand for highly skilled workers meaning high salaries. Contractors can earn towards £100 per hour in some highly specialist fields, with average salaries between £25 and £50 per hour. So where are our home grown IT pros hiding? Are our schools failing businesses?

“According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)/KPMG Labour Market Outlook for the Summer 2010, 21% of those firms surveyed are filling engineering vacancies with migrant workers, and 18% use migrants to fill IT, accountancy and finance roles.” Contractor Calculator Market Report Sept 2010.

Which IT Skills Are Most Important?

IT covers a wide range of specialist areas, from basic web design and content management roles to advanced programming and development roles.

According to Contractor Calculator the IT skills most in demand for short term contracting roles at the moment are Corba, DCOM, CAM, Fortran, PDH, CGI and 4GL.

Other areas of IT can often guarantee longer term working contracts, and these include more common computing skills such as Sybase, C#, Coldfusion, .NET, SQL and Swing.

One of the problems many businesses face is that many people are leaving college with only a basic knowledge of computing. Most of the top IT contractors are mostly self taught computer experts who have been working (and often playing) with computers for 20 years. The younger generation often have a good all round knowledge in computing but lack the knowledge required to work in specialist areas.

For more IT news and financial advice for contractors visit ContractorCalculator.co.uk.

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