Demand for finance sector IT staff falls despite recruitment surge

The demand for finance sector IT staff has fallen 6% in the fourth quarter of 2010, despite industry recruitment levels increasing 21% compared to a year ago.

According to a Computer Weekly report from Salary Services Limited (SSL) and JobsAdWatch.co.uk, the finance sector is the only private sector to see recruitment levels fall in the fourth quarter compared to the previous quarter. All other sectors experienced an increase in demand.

The number of jobs advertised for software houses and consultancies increased by 8%.

George Molyneaux, research director at SSL, said, "This growth may well be at the expense of jobs in finance as they transfer operations and development to outsourcing companies."

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"Whether the personnel affected transfer from finance to software houses is not clear. It is more likely that the outsourcing companies will be using a combination of onshore/offshore recruitment with staff being imported from outside the EU," said Molyneaux.

"At least the situation isn't as bad as the public sector, which has seen recruitment fall by 30% during the last quarter," he added.

The software skills most in demand in the finance sector are SQL, C, C#. Java and .Net. "Demand for contractors with Agile expertise is actually up on the previous quarter," said Molyneaux. The table below shows the programming vacancies financial institutes advertised for during the fourth quarter of 2010. Click on a skill to see more information on how demand has changed since 2007.

Salaries for financial sector project managers were down 11% on figures a year ago.

TABLE: Advertised salary/rates for selected job functions in the financial sector Source: Salary Services Limited / JobAdsWatch.co.uk