Peoplebank survey finds early “green shoots” in the IT sector
“This rise is consistent with Peoplebank’s experience that the contract sector is the first to respond to strengthened economic conditions,” - Peter Acheson, COO Peoplebank
Peoplebank’s Quarterly IT&T Salary Index, based on salaries
offered to permanent and contractor ICT workers over the April – June 09
period, confirms that while salaries and conditions remain stagnant, there are
early signs of a firming market – through strengthening demand for contractors
- in several of Australia’s key markets.
The
survey, released today, shows that overall IT employment levels
remained lower than the high levels recorded in the first half of 2008 and
demand was generally flat for
much of the quarter.
However,
Peoplebank’s COO, Peter Acheson comments that there was a noticeable firming in
the number of contractors being hired in June 2009 – a late improvement that
saw contractor levels for the period lift slightly by around 5% over the prior
quarter. Mr Acheson comments that this trend has continued into July.
Furthermore,
the types of contractors being sought being those that
are typically sought at the beginning of projects, indicating that there may be
the flow-on demand for project execution skills in the medium term.
The rise in demand for contractors was most evident in New South
Wales, in Western Australia and South Australia; and more constrained in
Victoria, Queensland and the ACT.
“This rise is consistent with Peoplebank’s experience that the
contract sector is the first to respond to strengthened economic conditions,
with a corresponding strengthening in the permanent market over the medium
term,” Mr Acheson said.
“In addition to this rise, Peoplebank’s clients are evidencing a
significant and noticeable shift towards hiring. In our May survey of
Peoplebank’s top 50 clients, only six indicated positive hiring intentions and
24 had a hiring freeze in place – and in sharp contrast, our June survey found
19 had positive hiring intentions and 12 had hiring freezes.
”In
short, we believe we are seeing the very early signs of green shoots of
recovery in the ICT sector: as organisations move ahead with projects,
including the much-publicised core systems upgrades in the FSI sector. Other
enterprises are now proceeding with projects that had been put on hold when the
GFC hit, and some are also gearing up – tentatively – with a contract-based
workforce so as to respond quickly to strengthening market conditions,” he
commented.
While most
salaries (see table below) remained static for salaries paid to permanent
employees and many contract ICT workers in more than 50 job areas, emerging
trends in individual markets included:
NSW:
· The contractor market
is being buoyed by several much-publicised major projects: eg core
systems upgrades in the major banks.
· Demand is
particularly strong in the banking, government and telco sectors.
·
Almost half of
all demand is for project managers/business analysts – the sort of skills
required at the commencement of projects. Other skills in demanded included for
developers – Java/J2EE, Data warehouse/ETL tools, and software and web testers.
· In permanent roles, demand was strongest for developers – including .net
and data warehouse developers, desktop support/service desk staff, server
engineers, security engineers, and for those with SAP skills.
VIC:
·
Contract and permanent employment levels
have declined over this the comparable period for last year – however, demand
has stabilized in both the contract and permanent sectors.
·
Contract rates continue to be scrutinised.
· Demand is strongest for: SAP, Storage, Security
Solution Architects, Project Managers, Business Analysts and Testers with FSI
knowledge, and for Desktop Support staff.
ACT
·
The impact of the GFC and departmental responses to
the Gershon report’s recommendations around the use of contractors contributed
to an overall reduction in engaged contractors of more than 15% at the end of
June, and rate reductions of between 5% and 20%.
· Permanent demand in the ACT market has been strong – however, as with
the contract market, there has been downward pressure on salary levels.
· Downward pressure is likely to remain until there is firm evidence of a
recovery across the nation
· Key demand is for Sharepoint and .Net skills.
WA:
·
Demand for contractors has strengthened to the
pre-December levels.
·
Permanent recruitment saw some signs of strengthening
in June.
·
Demand is strongest for Java Developers and Project
Managers, and also for .Net programmers, SQL Server database administrators,
Sharepoint developers and Administrators, and finally, Technical Writers.
SA
· Both permanent salaries and contract rates have remained stationary over
the past three months.
·
Demand for contractors began to firm late in June as
projects previously on-hold or shelved begin to come back online.
·
The skill-sets in high demand were spread across
several areas: including for developers, analysts and engineers, as well as for
people with ERP platform skills. Strongest demand is for Siebel, SharePoint, PeopleSoft Business Analysts
and Developers, Oracle Developers, and Junior and Senior UNIX AIX Engineers.
QLD
·
Market conditions remain challenged.
·
Both private and public sector organisations are
anticipating that the eventual commencement of planned projects will lead to an
increase in demand for contractors.
·
The top skillsets are: SAP (ABAP) Developers, .Net
Developers, Infrastructure Specialists (VMWare, Citrix, SAN, Active Directory
& Windows), Field Support/Help Desk Support.
Peoplebank is making its Quarterly Salary Index for each city available at www.peoplebank.com.au , as a
guide for its enterprise clients and as a measure intended to help ICT workers
identify areas of demand for their skills.
Table 1: Comparative Sample of Capital City Salary Rates (for
permanent roles):
|
Position |
Sydney |
ACT |
Melbourne |
Adelaide |
Perth |
Brisbane |
|
Senior
Business Analyst |
$120,000 |
|
