London IT market growing faster than anywhere

The IT jobs market in growing faster in inner London than anywhere in the country, according to new research from Salary Services Limited and jobsadwatch.co.uk.

SSL revealed some 55,000 jobs were advertised in the south east during the quarter up to the end of September. This figure compares to just 25,000 in the whole of the country combined.

Annually, inner London has seen a mammoth 24 per cent rise in the number of permanent IT positions and a 20.9 per cent increase for contractors.

In southern England, job opportunities rose by 1.8 per cent quarterly, taking the total increase to 19 per cent year-on-year.

Scotland fared the worst for creation of permanent IT jobs, with there being 5.1 per cent less opportunities than last year.

The north-west and west midlands have seen moderate growth in opportunities this year at 6.5 per cent and 1.7 per cent respectively, but both saw decreases in quarter three.

"If you want a job in IT move south," George Molyneux, research director at SSL, told Computer Weekly.

Recently a campaign by the Daily Mirror found that more than 40,000 IT jobs exist at present in the UK.

But, as one of the country's few growing industries, estimates suggest a further 500,000 IT professionals will need to be trained in the next five years.

According to SSL's survey, the fastest growing employment sector is AGILE software development, which has increased by a whopping 75.7 per cent.

The number of job advertisements asking for skills in JAVA and JAVASCRIPT have risen by 21 per cent and 22.7 per cent respectively, while ability with HTML was required by 18.2 per cent.

Software houses and consultancies played a big part in the job rises, making 18.8 per cent more positions available than in 2010. However, public sector roles have fallen by 40.6 per cent.

 Posted by Steven Gaskill

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