The market for IT contract jobs remains healthy and is predicted to recover strongly from the second English national lockdown, according to reports at website ContractorUK.
The website surveyed three major IT contract recruitment agencies, who revealed that October had been a particularly buoyant month, and that even now, one week after the coronavirus restrictions came into force, “we haven’t observed any negative impact [on IT contractor billings] from the second lockdown”.
The recruitment consultancies the website spoke to were SThree, Hays and First Point Group. Global head of technology at Hays, James Milligan, explained his assessment. “Businesses have gone into this fairly prepared. Business continuity and demand remains strong despite…[the] restrictions.”
SThree declined to speculate on how much the lockdown would affect billings, but agreed that October had been a much better month for IT contract placements.
“We’ll have to wait until early next week to understand any impact on orders based on the second national lockdown,” said Charlie Cox, commercial director at the consultancy. “However there feels to be a good business rhythm of late, and it means that we are able to continue bringing skilled people together”.
First Point Group’s David Taylor concurred: “We are still seeing good levels of hiring and activity. But … clients are often holding off major expansion plans till the new year and the passing or easing of COVID-19 [restrictions]. This is often a common theme.”
However, IT contractors in “necessity roles” were still being “actively hired”, the recruiter said.
“We are also seeing many clients adapt to home working and indeed hiring remote starters – again, often from necessity as business must continue,” continued Mr Taylor. “So I am hopeful that when coronavirus eases the market will recover quickly. How much the introduction of the IR35 changes dents the contract market, remains to be seen.” Earlier this month, data published by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation showed that the IT contract market had started to grow for the first time since September 2019.
