The second half of 1999 saw IT salaries stagnate during the Y2K
freeze. Nicholas Enticknap reports
The last quarter of 1999, and particularly December, saw levels
of IT recruitment plummet, as IT sites across the UK froze
development activity and concentrated on seeing in the new
millennium safely.
The jobs on offer fell by more than a half, relative to the same
period in 1998, from 58,000 to well under 29,000, according to the
SSP/Computer Weekly Quarterly Survey of Appointments Data
and Trends. However, this total was still greater than in any
fourth quarter in the six years from 1990 to 1995.
Over 1999 as a whole, there were 170,000 IT jobs advertised, and
this was the third highest total of the decade, after 1998 and 1997
respectively.This figure was 25% above the 1996 total, and well
over three times the 1992 total. With recruitment expected to pick
up again during the first quarter of this year - when user
"millennium freezes" end - the outlook for the future is
encouraging.
Two job categories fared notably better than the rest. The
number of software engineering jobs on offer fell just 18%, from
2,900 to 2,400, while networking specialists saw a fall of just
12%, from 2,800, to a little under 2,500. This figure is nearly 9%
of the total, the highest fourth quarter figure since 1994.
Comms on the up
Part of the reason for networking specialists doing relatively
well is that communications companies actually increased
advertising over the quarter, offering 3,500 jobs as against 3,400
a year ago. This was the only industry sector to post an increase,
for the second quarter in succession. As a result, skills in demand
by these companies, such as Lan and Wan expertise and experience of
Novell, X.25 and X.400, all showed significant upward movement in
the skills league table.
Three job categories fared significantly worse than average, in
all three cases, for the second quarter in succession. PC support
posts were down by over 70%, from 2,900 a year ago to just 800 this
time. Operations posts fell by 68% from 1,800 to 560, and systems
programming posts by the same proportion from 960 to just over
300.
Analyst/programmers also suffered, with just 4,300 jobs on offer
over the past three months, compared to nearly 13,000 a year ago.
This, along with the fall in demand for operators and systems
programmers, reflects declining recruitment from mainframe and
midrange sites.
IT sites running open systems advertise more often for systems
developers than analyst/programmers, and this is now the largest
job category, with more than 5,100 jobs on offer in the fourth
quarter. Over 4,300 of these were for platforms categorised by SSP
as "micros" - basically Windows/Intel-based platforms.
Salary increases on offer during the quarter were not generous,
as you would expect in a buyers' market. The median increase in
salary offered across all job positions was 3.4%, which compares
with 5.1% a year earlier.
The average salary figures across all industries, geographies
and platforms, for some major job titles, show that the rise in
salaries on offer among these job positions differed widely over
the quarter.
The surging demand for management consultants so evident in 1998
has tailed off, and they were offered, on average, a little less
than a year ago, for the third quarter in succession. System
analysts have only seen a marginal rise.
At the other end of the spectrum, IT managers saw the salaries
on offer rise 7% over the three months. Salaries offered to network
support technicians and operators are also up by above average, for
the second quarter in succession.
Programmers, analyst/programmers and systems developers have all
seen salaries rise broadly in line with the market overall.
By platform type, it was the mainframe and proprietary midrange
sites that reduced recruitment the most. In the IBM world,
advertising by System 390 and AS/400 sites was down to a quarter of
the level of a year ago, while non-IBM mainframe sites battened
down the hatches even more. Only 170 jobs of all types were offered
by these sites over the three months, down from 900 a year ago.
Mainframe sites in total accounted for just 7% of the jobs on
offer over the past three months, compared with over 12% for the
same period a year earlier. This is the main reason why jobs for
operators and systems programmers have declined so rapidly.
Unix sites have also seen jobs decline sharply, with 3,300 jobs
on offer this time compared to over 8,000 a year ago. All of this
means that Windows/Intel-based positions, which numbered 18,500
over the three months, accounted for two thirds of all the jobs on
the market.
Geographical spread
Geographically, the decline in the number of jobs on offer was
spread rather more evenly. Best off was Scotland, but even here
positions available fell by 42%, while the Wales and West region
was worst off with a 62% decline.
Although Wales and the West fared worst of the seven regions
analysed by SSP over 1999 as a whole, the region did top the table
in 1998. The area also enjoyed market growth of over 60% in that
year and in 1997, so IT professionals working there have little
grounds for complaint.
Outer London was the region that did best of all over 1999, with
the fall in recruitment limited to 24% over the year as a whole.
That statistic masks the fact that recruitment fell by a greater
rate in each succeeding quarter, as indeed it did in inner
London.
Analysed by industry sector, recruitment demand fell much more
sharply among user companies than within the IT industry itself, as
it did throughout 1999.
This, as we have seen, is partly accounted for by an increase in
recruitment by the communications company sector. Overall, IT
industry jobs available fell from 28,000 to 15,500, a decline of
45%.
All the individual user industry sectors fell by more than this
except the public sector, where for the second quarter in
succession the decline was less than 30%.
In the financial area, the biggest sector, jobs offered fell by
more than 60%, from 8,200 to 3,100. The retail, engineering and
energy sectors all slashed their recruitment by more than
two-thirds compared with a year ago.
Breakdown of jobs by region
| Region | 4Q99 | 4Q98 | Change |
| Inner
London | 4,198 | 9,630 | -56% |
| Outer
London | 3,749 | 7,295 | -49% |
| Southern
England | 7,703 | 15,954 | -52% |
| Wales &
West | 2,432 | 6,398 | -62% |
| Midlands &
East | 3,737 | 7,579 | -51% |
| Northern
England | 3,612 | 6,923 | -48% |
| Scotland | 1,216 | 2,113 | -42% |
Breakdown of jobs by industry sector
| Jobs | 4Q99 | 4Q98 | Change |
| Computer
vendors | 697 | 1,039 | -33% |
| Software
houses | 11,240 | 23,593 | -52% |
| Comms
companies | 3,519 | 3,391 | +4% |
| Banking/finance | 3,108 | 8,207 | -62% |
| Distribution/retail | 855 | 3,081 | -72% |
| Media/publishing | 476 | 996 | -52% |
| Manufacturing | 326 | 900 | -64% |
| Engineering | 571 | 1,938 | -71% |
| Utilities/energy | 129 | 501 | -74% |
| Public
sector | 794 | 1,121 | -29% |
Jobs offered in each Q4 of the last decade
| 4Q90 | 18,963 |
| 4Q91 | 12,111 |
| 4Q92 | 11,490 |
| 4Q93 | 13,981 |
| 4Q94 | 21,178 |
| 4Q95 | 27,443 |
| 4Q96 | 32,549 |
| 4Q97 | 52,401 |
| 4Q98 | 58,020 |
| 4Q99 | 28,701 |