IT job market swinging back in favour of candidates

With fewer applicants around, good candidates can demand higher salaries

Job candidates in the IT industry are enjoying greater bargaining power thanks to a shortage of applicants, according to IT recruitment specialist CV Screen.

The firm says that salaries for permanent IT staff in the UK have risen five per cent over the past year, with the average salary for an IT professional now at £38,946.

At the same time, the number of applications per role has dropped by around 20 per cent.

"This time last year, there was a lot of people applying for jobs due to mass redundancies. Those people have secured new positions so there are fewer people applying," said Matthew Iveson, director at CV Screen.

He explained that four or five years ago, people were prepared to move jobs for a better salary, but that has not been the case over the past two years because of the tough economic climate.

However, there are now early signs that IT professionals should have the confidence to either request pay rises or secure moves to higher paying roles.

"For a head of IT, it's important to be aware that the job market has changed and candidates are able to demand higher salaries," said Iveson.

"[Employees] are going to ask for pay rises, which over the past couple of years people didn't dare do because companies weren't performing very well. But now they are. And if they don't get [a pay rise] more people will be prepared to move in order to secure a pay rise."

There is currently a lack of good quality candidates within the .NET, PHP and Java development sectors, and candidates with these skills are best placed to negotiate higher salaries.

CV Screen's survey of the IT job market looked at a range of 50 IT roles and monitored around 7,000 advertised positions in the UK during the first quarter of 2011, comparing the figures with the same period in the previous year.