ICT contracting remains a positive business centre for contract and recruitment companies with its varied industry and career opportunities, according to the September 2012 to February 2013 SkillsMatch Contractor Rates Trend Analysis study conducted by the Information Technology Contract and Recruitment Association (ITCRA).
The A/NZ ICT contract and recruitment company association claimed contracts of less than a year in duration accounted for 94 per cent of all initial agreements, an increase from 90 per cent six months ago with a negligible number of contracts of two years or longer.
ITCRA said, in a statement, that the trend for a strong result for placements was despite the Queensland Government’s slow return to rollout of positions via the Resource Manager, demonstrating the resilience and need for ICT contracting.
ITCRA CEO, Julie Mills, claimed the finding mirrored a number of trends in other benchmarking reports and supported recent commentary by contractors themselves.
“This stabilisation appears, at first glance, to have come at the expense of contract duration with core roles such as project management benefiting from longer contracts while almost all other roles are now short-term,” she said.
The analysis also found that the lower volume of contracts with a few high rates pushed December’s average hourly rate to a high, with average hourly rates for the six month period of $88.75.
It reached a high of $108.02 in December and a low of $79.89 in January with the highest average rates achieved by Business Intelligence Consultants in December and the lowest for Helpdesk in November, while Network Designers showed the greatest variance.
It also found that roles in strong demand include: desktop/network support, business intelligence consultants and project managers.
The weakest demand was for account managers, systems analysts and communications managers.
