Date:10/08/11

IT contractors see opportunity in financial services

IT contractors believe the financial services sector will be the best-performing market segment over the coming years as banks and insurance firms step up demand for IT skills.The claim comes from contractor services provider Giant group, which undertook a survey of 606 IT contractors and found that 32.6 per cent of them think the financial services sector will create the most jobs in IT over the next 12 months.This is up from 27.5 per cent last year.Their views are given credibility by research from analyst Ovum, which found that spending on IT in the financial markets industry will hit almost $90bn (£55bn) by 2015, up from $72bn by the end of 2011."The hedge funds market was badly affected by the financial crash, with investors staying away owing to its disastrous performance. As a result, investment in IT fell significantly in 2008 and 2009," explained Daniel Mayo, Ovum financial markets technology analyst.
"However, investors seeking the high returns it can once again provide have come back, and IT investment is slowly growing as a result. By 2012, we expect the market to reach pre-recession levels." Matthew Brown, managing director of Giant, added: "Banks pulled the plug on a lot of IT projects during the recession, but are now ramping up spending again as they play catch-up.
"In areas where banks expect to make significant productivity gains, such as cloud computing, demand for IT skills has risen sharply." Meanwhile, the firm's research also showed that confidence in the public sector has fallen to an all-time low. Just 8.9 per cent of IT contractors expect the public sector to create the most jobs over the next 12 months. This compares with 16.9 per cent this time last year, and 29.6 per cent in 2008.

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