Crystal Umbrella

We’ve recently reported some gloomy news for the IT contracting world, or at least those PAYE umbrella contractors working in banks and financial services who have seen substantial cuts to their pay rates in recent months. However, new research from a specialist recruitment agency suggests that City firms are engaged in a bidding war to secure the talent they need in the IT skills market.

Salaries for senior IT professionals working in hedge fund management have surged by 30% since 2010 and bonuses by 60%, the specialist IT recruiter ReThink reveals.

Commenting on the figures, ReThink’s Head of Financial Services, Fhamid Malik, said “A shortage of candidates has meant that bidding wars for top staff can easily erupt – which can result in base salaries being increased by up to 30% to stop key members of their IT teams leaving.”

The skills that appear to be most in demand are predominantly .Net and C#, but tekkies who can combine sound technical knowledge with experience in trading and pricing analysis are especially sought after. The clamour to keep contractors and other staff with the requisite IT expertise has reached such a point that, in a growing number of cases, bonuses are being paid on a quarterly basis rather than annually, as is customary.

Less encouraging data, however, emerged from the specialist financial services recruiter Astbury Marsden, which paints a rather different picture to the “bidding war” scenario uncovered by ReThink. According to Astbury Martin’s data, cost cutting in the financial sector has led to a surfeit of IT contractors looking for work, who rose by 30% on last month’s figures.

Over the years, PAYE umbrella contractors in the IT skills market have acquired a reputation for their forward-thinking embrace of flexible working arrangements. However, a new study suggests that most of them actually rate job stability most highly in their list of priorities.

Specialist recruitment agency Elan commissioned the survey of 500 IT workers, asking them to rank their top three priorities for moving into a new role. From IT business analysts to those holding support or developer roles, IT contracting professionals are less the adventurous ‘guns-for-hire’ of popular mythology and more the conservatively security-seeking family men and women of everyday life.

Although the proportion of permanent workers who rated job stability as their top priority was highest (83%), a surprisingly high number of IT contractors shared their views – 67%.

The results suggest that contractors and permanent workers alike are being affected by the climate of economic uncertainty that hangs ominously over the UK at present. Moreover, it may also suggest that the IT contracting workforce today is a little older than it was a few years back – people in their thirties with family commitments and mortgages are more inclined to seek work stability than young adults in their twenties.

Flexibility about working hours, however, came in as the second highest priory, with 68% of permanent workers and 60% of contractors choosing it as the ‘runner up’ priority. Both groups selected technical training as their third priority in roughly equal measure.

IT contractors, it seems, are rather more ‘cuddly’ in their approach to working life than their folklore image suggests.

It has been revealed in a new survey that up to three quarters of small business owners find it difficult to go on holiday and leave their work concerns at home. With many freelancers providing ongoing services for a range of companies, sole contractors also feel concerned, finding that they are unable to relax whilst away. Whilst umbrella companies offer the ideal support for contractors, the uncertainty of long-term work keeps many individuals from unwinding fully.

The news comes after Intuit, the accountancy software provider, revealed results of its latest survey. 72% of small business owners worked whilst away, with a seventh admitting they spent less time relaxing than they did working. In addition, 22% of those questioned admitted that their first day back in the office left them more stressed than they had been before going on their break.

With many of these concerns also relating to the freelance market, Inuit revealed that ‘work-cations’ were increasing in prevalence, with individuals going on holiday but taking mobile devices and laptops with them so that they could work whilst away. Managing Director of Intuit UK, Pernille Bruun-Jensen, said “Everybody needs to take time off now and then but our findings show that small business owners never switch off, even when they could really do with switching off. Rather than not taking a break at all, many of them are choosing to take their business away on holiday with them.” With umbrella companies seeing a rising number of people in the freelance field, more people than ever are expected to be indulging in work whilst away.

The NHS is seeking highly skilled specialists in IT contracting working through umbrella companies, according to data from the international recruitment firm Badenoch and Clark.

Contractors in the IT skills market who have knowledge of NHS data systems and SQL server business intelligence are experiencing increased demand for their services, figures contained in Badenoch and Clark’s latest Talent Spotlight reveal. The company’s Operations Director, Mark Gascoigne, says that NHS Trusts based in Birmingham are creating new NHS datasets and are on the lookout for skilled information analysts as a result. The health service needs to develop more robust data warehouse solutions and business intelligence, Mr Gascoigne explained, both of which are driving demand for IT contractors.

In London, numerous NHS Trusts are attempting to complete major projects and are seeking data migration professionals, especially those with testing and training experience in RiO and Cerbner, he added.

Outsourced work for IT professionals may also be more generally on the rise. Technology sector analyst Ovum claims that the utilities sector, which is known to be squeezed for cash, is reluctantly outsourcing IT work in a bid to keep the long-term costs associated with permanent positions to a minimum. Hiring PAYE umbrella contractors and other skilled freelancers is about the only option they have to keep permanent headcounts to a minimum.

The rise in outsourced work is hardly a tidal wave – Ovum’s Principal Analyst Stuart Ravens described it as small but significant – but it is a trend he believes will increase over the coming year. Utilities companies are beginning to realise that outsourcing must be given serious consideration.

PAYE umbrella contractors with expertise in the IT skills market should consider placements with small tech firms, according to one expert who believes they provide exciting opportunities for tekkies.

Ian Hogarth, the Chief Executive Officer of the music website “Songkick,” claims that smaller companies emerging in the technology sector can deliver a stimulating and stable working environment for freelancers specialising in IT contracting. Songkick itself represents one of the success stories for such firms – launched only four years ago, it’s now a thriving enterprise.

But Hogarth’s invitation came with a note of caution: economic circumstances remain extraordinarily difficult for small businesses in particular, and small tech firms have not received sufficient government support at the crucial start-up phase. With government backing, however, he believes they could easily become a highly attractive option for the UK’s best IT talent.

He urged the coalition to do all in its power to assist start-up tech firms to flourish. This would help stop the bigger companies from mopping up all the leading IT talent and help the crucial smaller business sector to drive employment upwards. He said, “We’d like to see the government promote start-ups as a stable, legitimate and exciting option for graduating software engineers.”

Hogarth drew attention to a disturbing fact – even though the UK has some of the finest educational institutions for engineering in the world, most of the country’s top engineering graduates end up joining a management consultancy or a bank. Too many IT graduates think that jobs in software development with a new company are still too risky and they want a more secure option. Adequate government support would dispel this fear, Hogarth believes, and attract talented software engineers – the “lifeblood of tech start-ups” – toward working in new firms.

IT contracting in the financial services sector continues to have decidedly healthy prospects, new research suggests.

The study from the contractor service provider Giant Group suggests that insurance firms and banks are boosting their IT expenditure, a development that hasn’t gone unnoticed by many PAYE umbrella contractors in the IT skills market. A third of IT contractors believe that it will be the financial services sector where most IT jobs will be found in the coming year – a significant rise from the same time last year, when only 8% of those polled felt that way.

The number of contractors anticipating that the public sector will produce the most jobs has virtually halved, plunging from last year’s 17% to today’s 9%. In 2008, the proportion was a positively buoyant 30% but the government’s austerity measures have since taken the wind out of the public sector’s sails. With public sector opportunities evaporating, the finance sector is becoming considerably more important to specialists in IT contracting.

Experience and skills in cloud computing will be especially in demand, according to the Giant Group’s Managing Director, Matthew Brown, who believes the evidence now suggests that banks are “ramping up spending again” after the recession, during which they pulled out of many IT projects.

In addition to efforts to improve productivity through cloud computing, banks also have to deal with new regulations aimed at making them more transparent. Brown believes this, too, is driving demand for IT contractors.

The research heralds a welcome change in fortune for IT contractors, who suffered acutely during the depths of the financial meltdown.

Two new forecasts offer opposing prospects for umbrella companies in the coming year.

PAYE umbrella contractors hunting for new placements may be heartened by the latest forecast from the CBI. It predicts that, while growth will remain sluggish throughout 2011, GDP will rise modestly in 2012. However, a study by the insurance firm Aviva suggests that 10% of small firms fear having to close unless trading conditions improve.

The figures come at a time when consumer spending appears to be faltering and most measures of business confidence indicate a decline. Even so, the CBI anticipates a 1.3% expansion in the UK economy this year and a 2.2% expansion in 2012.

Investment growth is expected to limp along at around 3.7% this year but the CBI believes it will rise to 9.7% in 2012. The CBI’s Director-General, John Cridland, believes that we may see a somewhat lacklustre recovery but the UK will nonetheless “remain on track.” His views were endorsed by the CBI’s Chief Economic Adviser, Ian McCafferty, who expects economic conditions to remain tough during 2011 but, as salaries improve and inflation eases, prospects will brighten in 2012.

The Aviva study is rather less optimistic, at least so far as the 500 small businesses it surveyed are concerned. 28% of respondents believed that another recession was likely, while only 13% remained positive about the economy. Aviva’s Commercial Product manager, David Bruce, explained that many SMEs “feel they are in real danger of losing their businesses should the economy fail to improve this year.” He noted new revelations that banks involved in the Government’s much-touted ‘Project Merlin’ have missed important lending targets for SMEs.

The latest Report on Jobs published by REC and KPMG may not cause many PAYE umbrella contractors to break open the champagne, but it brings modestly encouraging new nonetheless. Recruiters reported that contractors working for umbrella companies were still in demand during July, with both temporary billings and permanent placements rising moderately.

Pay rates also rose from the low-point reached in June but remain subdued. Contractors in the IT skills market will be reassured to find that workers in that sector, along with engineering and construction, were the most sought after. Moreover, the supply of permanent candidates reached the best level in 18 months, while temporary availability hit its strongest point since February.

Commenting on the figures, the REC’s Chief Executive Kevin Green said ”This month’s Report on Jobs shows that the rate of jobs growth in July quickened from June’s figures. These figures show that the jobs market is continuing to perform well despite general weakness in the UK economy.  We have now had two years of continuous growth and employers are still continuing to hire staff, albeit not in the numbers needed to radically reduce unemployment.”

Mr Green added that the key reason why employment is continuing to grow even in difficult economic circumstances is the UK’s flexible labour market – employers are increasingly turning to temporary workers and “continue to see the value of using a flexible workforce.”

KPMG Partner and Head of Business Services, Bernard Brown, noted that, although the jobs market hasn’t deteriorated, employers in all sectors continue to be cautious about taking on new staff. Government cuts and falling real wages continue to depress domestic demand, he added.

The latest Report on Jobs published by REC and KPMG may not cause many PAYE umbrella contractors to break open the champagne, but it brings modestly encouraging new nonetheless. Recruiters reported that contractors working for umbrella companies were still in demand during July, with both temporary billings and permanent placements rising moderately.

Pay rates also rose from the low-point reached in June but remain subdued. Contractors in the IT skills market will be reassured to find that workers in that sector, along with engineering and construction, were the most sought after. Moreover, the supply of permanent candidates reached the best level in 18 months, while temporary availability hit its strongest point since February.

Commenting on the figures, the REC’s Chief Executive Kevin Green said ”This month’s Report on Jobs shows that the rate of jobs growth in July quickened from June’s figures. These figures show that the jobs market is continuing to perform well despite general weakness in the UK economy.  We have now had two years of continuous growth and employers are still continuing to hire staff, albeit not in the numbers needed to radically reduce unemployment.”

Mr Green added that the key reason why employment is continuing to grow even in difficult economic circumstances is the UK’s flexible labour market – employers are increasingly turning to temporary workers and “continue to see the value of using a flexible workforce.”

KPMG Partner and Head of Business Services, Bernard Brown, noted that, although the jobs market hasn’t deteriorated, employers in all sectors continue to be cautious about taking on new staff. Government cuts and falling real wages continue to depress domestic demand, he added.

As the deadline for the implementation of the Agency Workers Regulations draws ever closer, contractors working through umbrella companies and limited companies alike may welcome the publication by the REC of a second batch of model contracts which are fully compliant with the new legislation.

The contracts are a key component of the REC’s AWR Advisor Toolkit, which was launched last week, and represent the culmination of the organisation’s efforts to help its members prepare their staff, agency payroll workers and clients for the activation of the new rules on 1^st October. The latest documents include Inside IR35 and PAYE model contracts (Contracts 3-8) as well as model contracts for the Swedish Derogation option.

The REC’s Head of Professional Services, Lewina Farrell, said that the organisation’s legal team had undertaken a “mammoth task” in updating all the model contracts to comply with AWR. “We had been working on the contracts for some considerable time to ensure they were all fit for purpose for our members. The contracts released today are for those workers who will be agency workers for the purposes of the AWR,” she explained.

With only a few weeks left before the implementation of the EU directive, forward planning has become increasingly urgent. The model documents should help all individuals and agencies affected by the legislation to move into the new, post-AWR era relatively smoothly.

Recruiters in Northern Ireland are not yet included in the latest REC publication, as the Department for Employment and Learning (DELNI) has not yet finalised its AWR guidance. As soon as it does so, Ms Farrell advised, Northern Ireland recruiters would receive their final documents from REC.