Pay scales for IT contractors in the City have begun to bounce back after the recession, as a Europe-wide shortage of skills for Solvency II and Basel III compliance coupled with renewed financial services investment drives up rates.
According to year-on-year research by specialist recruitment agency, Clarity Resourcing, business-change and programme management contractors working in the financial services sector could be earning, on average, 11% more per day than their current rates. The Clarity Contractor Index, constructed by job title and practice, showed that rates have increased for most contractors from Q4 2009 to Q4 2010.
IT contractors were hit hard when the recession took hold and financial services organisations cut projects and budgets.
But Clarity is now reporting a surge in day rates for programme managers, senior project managers, project managers, workstream managers and business analysts. These contractors earn on average 20% per day more now than they did in 2009 says the firm.
The increases are not uniformly spread, with ETL and BI/BO developers claiming daily rate rises of more than 50%, whereas audit and programme test managers have experienced a nine per cent decline in earnings potential.
Adam Sztuka, Clarity MD comments: "Organisations wishing to attract the best talent should keep a close eye on market rates. Contractors should also compare their rates against the wider market as even a three percent per day increase over a three month period is a significant pay gap."