Demand for IT developers outstrips supply

The rate of redundancies across all sectors dropped to 6.5 redundancies per 1,000

There is a shortage of both temporary and permanent IT developers, according to April’s KPMG/Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) report on jobs.

Other specialists in short supply include system analysts and IT sales staff, according to the report.

Vacancies increased across all sectors last month, with the IT category accounting for the second-highest level of demand after Executive and Professional. The increase in demand for permanent IT staff was just short of February 2010’s 31-month high.

The demand for temporary staff increased across all sectors in April but slowed a little on the February to March period. Demand for temporary IT staff also increased on the previous month, although there was less demand for temporary IT staff than for three other employment sectors – Engineering and Construction, Secretarial and Clerical and Blue Collar.

The rate of redundancies across all sectors dropped to 6.5 redundancies per 1,000 employees, the lowest rate for almost one and a half years.

The most up to date ONS data available showed that redundancies declined across all sectors in the fourth quarter of 2009.

The public sector recorded 14,000 redundancies in Q4 2009, a drop of 2,000 on the previous quarter and the lowest figure since first-quarter 2009.

However, public sector redundancies are widely expected to rise as government spending is cut over the next few years.

This may hit IT workers particularly hard as a future government looks to pare down its "big project" IT spending and recruit fewer external IT consultants.