Nearly 20,000 City workers can expect tolose their jobs in the next two years,
according to a recent report. But IT staff are safer than most,
with experts confident they will weather the worst of the
storm.
The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) says the
credit crunch will see 11,000 City workers lose their jobs in 2008,
and a further 8,200 go in 2009.
But a combination of factors will keep the
IT job market buoyant, with banks needing to save money and
stay one step ahead of their competitors.
Innovative IT is the now one of the best ways to stand out, said
Peter Redshaw, research director at Gartner. "Customers move banks
more often than they used to, and banks need to differentiate
themselves and innovate. IT is one way for them to do this."
The
skills shortage may have also helped IT cope with the effects
of the credit
crunch. Banks may have overstaffed some areas, such as
investment banking and corporate finance, during better economic
periods. But IT departments have been understaffed for a number of
years.
Ralph Silva, an analyst at Towergroup, said, "Other areas of the
banking industry got a little bit heavy when times were good. They
hired too many people. In IT, this did not happen - there were not
enough people."
Silva said it is the operations and maintenance IT workers who
are least at risk of losing their jobs, because banks still need IT
support and stability. Banks may well be cutting back on emerging
technologies and new implementations, however, meaning IT staff
specialising in this area may find fewer vacancies are
available.
Brian Taylor, CTO at stock exchange Plus Markets, said IT jobs
are valuable in the trading sector and are unlikely to be cut.
He said investment banks are still selectively hiring. "I do not
think IT jobs are disappearing because IT actually saves money and
provides the next generation of services and products."
But Redshaw said that operations IT staff should not feel too
comfortable. Pressure to keep costs down could lead to some
companies deciding to offshore their operations, or
outsourcing to a third
party in the UK.
He said, "I think a lot of jobs may be moving offshore or moving
to third parties.
"Smaller banks will be looking for economies of scale, or they
may want to launch an initiative without huge investment up-front
with their own staff. Outsourcing could give them security in a
volatile market."
Dominic Walley, management economist at CEBR and one of the
authors of the report, said the nature of IT means it will not be
as badly affected by less credit being available. The fact that
banks have stopped lending money to one another, and stopped
financing big deals, does not stop companies having their own money
to spend on business investment.
He said, "We are expecting IT to be one of the stronger sectors
over the next couple of years. Mergers and acquisitions activity
has stopped, but companies' balance sheets are looking quite
healthy at the moment."
It is important for businesses to make sure they do not stop
investing in IT, said Redshaw. They need to find an optimum level
of business investment: they cannot invest too much, but they also
do not want to get left behind.
"We expect that the good times will return at some point," he
said. "If you have not invested in the infrastructure, you cannot
then scale up to take advantage of this. Under-investing can be
damaging."
He also predicted that IT staff specialising in risk management
and compliance would be in demand, because government is likely to
bring in more legislation in the wake of the crunch.
Paul Pullinger, director of sales at Capgemini, said IT jobs are
"more resilient", but said spending on IT is generally split into
two - operations and "discretionary spend" on new projects.
Although it might be expected that new-project spending will fall,
he agreed with Redshaw and predicted anyone with specialist IT
skills in compliance and risk management would continue to be in
high demand.
Companies will continue to replace parts of their IT
infrastructure, he said, but will probably do it in smaller pieces
instead of embarking on entire overhauls. He said, "People will be
making some tactical decisions about replacing parts of their
systems. They will have to get very specific about what is going to
help."
"IT budgets will grow more slowly," said Redshaw. "And there
will be more pressure to find additional savings through IT. But
companies see that it is one of the things that can help preserve
their profit margins, so IT people are less at risk than
others."