We’ve reported both good news and bad on the prospects for the jobbing contractor here at Contracting Made Easy in recent months. It’s likely that this slightly manic-depressive pattern reflects the uncertain state of the economy, where some doors are undoubtedly set to close on IT contract jobs in the foreseeable future (notably in the public sector) whilst others are likely to open – the financial sector is set to implement revolutionary new risk management technology which will require plenty of tekkies to come to the rescue.
Taking a longer view, people who have tried and tested IT skills could well become the beneficiaries of a tail-off in the numbers of students enrolling for computing-related degrees in recent years. This is the view of one industry commentator, who forecasts that IT literate people are likely to find themselves much in demand in the years ahead as a consequence of this student trend.
Over the next five to ten years, IT contractors should find themselves in far more secure – and more lucrative – employment, not least because, recession or not, the information age is here and there are fewer new graduates available to service and develop it. Figures produced last week by E-Skills UK showed an encouraging 5% rise in demand for IT staff in the first quarter of 2010, taking the number of positions filled up to 86,000. Counting chickens before they’re hatched is always a risky business, but there appears to be a bumper harvest of healthy-looking eggs in the IT basket.
