IT contractors

High inflation appears to have boosted the less quickly growing IT contractor jobs market, as the slowdown in growth in temporary technology billings paused in May.

In Report on Jobs, the REC suggests that rising costs made employers scrutinising the bottom line turn to temps rather than add members of staff to the payroll on a full-time basis.

REC chief executive Neil Carberry gave this assessment in the report on Friday, potentially part explaining how demand for IT contractors shot up in May to 66.1 from 63.7 in April.

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‘Inflation-induced caution’
Mr Carberry said: “The market for temporary work is stabilising faster than for permanent staff, which could suggest a little caution creeping into employers’ thinking in the face of high inflation.”

Kate Shoesmith, the Recruitment & Employment Confederation’s deputy CEO returned last week from a hiring expo in Brussels, only to similarly acknowledge inflation’s tight grip.

“We have been through tough times [chiefly due the coronavirus pandemic], followed by record-breaking successes. But the economic headwinds are [still] there,” she said.

‘Rethinking growth plans’
As to inflation’s effects, Claire Warnes of KPMG spoke of employers “starting to rethink their growth plan” as — like candidates — they face ‘the greatest costs in recent years.’

“And these are expected to increase, at least in the short term,” said Ms Warnes, KPMG’s head of education, skills and productivity.

As well as “rising business costs” for both candidates and end-users alike, she sounded more sympathetic to the latter, by pointing out organisations also face “supply chain disruption.”

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‘IT Operations and Helpdesk keeping pace with inflation’
But only last week, Indeed said that as “the economy starts to weaken,” the phenomenon of “soaring inflation” was eroding the pay gains of “most” workers.

The jobsite found exceptions though – seven occupations in total, including IT Operations and Helpdesk where pay has climbed by a healthy 7.1% in the 12 months to April 2022.

“A handful of occupational categories are seeing wage growth keep pace with inflation, largely the ones facing the most acute hiring challenges”, said Indeed’s Jack Kennedy.

The jobsite’s economist, he added: “Employers in these sectors are having to raise pay to deal with the combination of high vacancies and falling relative jobseeker interest.”

‘Hot market for the sector-qualified’
Compounding the situation, candidate availability is falling too, the REC found in May, and one consequence is “it remains a hot market for those well-qualified in their sectors.”

But another consequence of lower candidate availability is frustrated recruiters.

“Jobs that are paying well for super companies = no applicants. No amount of hunting is getting responses. Very, very few if any candidates,” posted recruiter Roseanne Stockton.

Boss at Nu-Recruit, she added: “Candidates….are excellent. But in the main, up to that point [of meeting them], I cannot find many. [There are just] two candidates per job [opening] at the moment!”

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‘None of their clients would touch a career-breaker’
However some recruiters aren’t helping themselves by excluding professionals who have CV gaps due to taking a career break.

The disregard of individuals with lives beyond just work disappoints agents like Kieran Boyle, owner of CKB Recruitment, who took to LinkedIn.

“Spoke to a candidate this morning [with] bags of experience, [but] taken nine years out to have children.

“The [candidate] was told by a rather well-known insurance recruiter that they didn’t want to work with her, and none of their clients would touch someone whose had a career break”.

“What a load of poppycock,” Mr Boyle continued online, reflecting in his own post. “The industry faces an unprecedented skills shortage, so why would you not try and help someone back into this amazing industry, and help one of your clients fill a role at the same time?”

‘Flexibility trumps pay’
The shortage in the IT sector in May was severe for Developers, Software Engineers, and IT and Technology generalists, as these four were scarce on both a permanent and contract basis.

No other IT contractor skills were “in short supply” in May according to REC’s member agencies, which struggled to find full-time applicants for Analysis, CAD, Data, Digital, Software and Technical Sales positions.

But the confederation has repeated its advice to employers that cash is no longer king.

“Flexibility [now] trumps pay, “ said the REC’s Ms Shoesmith. “[And that’s] closely followed by [company] culture in [terms of] candidate job search [preferences] right now.”

By Simon Moore

Source: Contractor UK

The UK’s runaway demand for IT contractors smashed another record last month, soaring to 71.7 – its highest level since March 1998.

So not for 23 years has appetite for IT contractors been so sharp, although the peak in June represents only the fifth month in a row where the demand increased.

Unveiling these figures, the REC said the market was now “improving at the fastest pace we have ever seen,” but cautioned, “it is still an unpredictable time.”

‘Technology sector doing well’
Although the agency body was describing the labour market as a whole, the reading largely applies to the IT contractor market too where the buoyancy but also the pressures are similar.

For example, while IT is “doing well” as is most “skilled work”, it is “difficult to know what the picture will look like” very soon, because the furlough scheme is winding down.

Speaking before the figures but in a period covered by its Report on Jobs, the Recruitment & Employment’s Neil Carberry also said shortages were acute in IT, just as they were generally.

‘Slowing the recovery’
So acute that, against the backdrop of general candidate availability dropping to a 24-year low, technology was identified as one of four sectors requiring “more [government] support.”

“[It’s likely] needed to avoid slowing the recovery,” warned Mr Carberry, the REC’s CEO, pointing not just to IT, but also to Hospitality, Food and the IR35 reform-hit Driving sector.

“[The] HGV driver shortage [is] intensifying. [So in] summary, we see a labour market that is lumpy right now — with high and unmet demand in some sectors.”

He continued: “For the longer run, a tighter labour market and fast economic change is inevitable. So employers need to be thinking about their workforce strategy much more practically, and what their offer is — but not just on salary — also on terms, and the perm-temp decisions.”

‘In short supply’
Across the perm-temp IT space, the skills “in short supply” in June according to REC member agencies were BI, Development, IT, Digital and Technology.

Unique to the permanent technology staff market, the shortages were of Automation Testing, C#, Data, Media, Software Engineering and Technical Sales.

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Whereas specific to IT contractors, opportunities requiring CNC, Cyber, Scala and Java were the hardest for the agencies to place.

‘Agents working flat out’
Elsewhere in the June report, the confederation says both businesses and government should “take action” to “reskill and upskill”, amid recruiters currently “working flat out.”

Sounding definitely flat out, and exasperated at trying to raise an ‘Open for Work’ LinkedIn user, a tech boss posted: “Why is it OK for candidates to ignore messages and reach outs?

“I just don’t get it. You set your status as ‘Open to work’ which is a signal that invites people to contact you, and then you choose not to respond to messages. Not even a simple polite ‘thanks but no thanks.’”

‘Nine-stage interview’
But candidates sound frustrated too, especially if interviews turn into marathons. A software engineer said: “I pulled my name for consideration for a company I was interviewing with.

“This was a company I did the first three [interview] rounds with two weeks ago. [And] this was for a role I wanted. [But] I decided to pull my name for consideration, because they were [next planning on] working to schedule rounds FOUR to NINE of the interview process”.

A specialist in Enterprise Architecture, the consultant added: “For the types of jobs I’ve been looking for, the number of interviews has been getting higher and higher.

“Companies think they are building processes that ensure picking the right candidate. I don’t think that’s true. I think it’s due to fear of picking the wrong candidate.”

‘Baffled’
Not all of the interview stages are always face-to-face, however, as a Microsoft recruitment partner clearly forgot.

Taking to social media, the recruiter admitted: “A client just asked me to book second interviews and I was baffled! The candidates hadn’t even had their first interview.

“[But] then I remembered we had sent videos across as their first stage, using the client’s interview questions [and getting the candidates to answer them].”

Written by Simon Moore

Source: Contractor UK

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