The IT skills shortage will become even more critical during 1998, with the wage inflationary pressures endured in 1997 set to continue.

This was the warning expressed this week by Peter Anthony of Elan Computing.

This upward trend is also true for skills like Cobol and RPG400. Elan has also received requests for contractors with unusual skills such as Bull DPS 6 Screenwrite, which has not been required in the UK for some seven years. Testing and project planning skills are also in short supply, as are software and systems development expertise required for projects looking beyond the Year 2000.

"The cost of employing skilled IT professionals increased by an average of 20 per cent in 1997, well above the rate of inflation.

"But as businesses continue to fish in the rapidly diminishing skills pool, exacerbated by a practical need to address the millennium problem and EMU-compliance, the outcome will be similar or even higher salary hikes in 1998," says Anthony.

"The problem will deteriorate across the industry as a whole. Businesses require support and development skills for legacy systems such as Cobol, Cics and DB2, and current skills such as such as Visual Basic, Windows NT, Oracle, Unix, Sybase and C. These are the areas likely to be worst hit.

Anthony predicts that the lead times required to secure the services of IT contract staff will also increase. "The IT personnel market, for both permanent and contract staff, is a 'skill sellers' market."