Twenty-six per cent of all IT contractors work in the public sector, compared to 27 per cent six months ago. The public sector had a 13 per cent share of the IT contractor market in June 2003, peaking at 27 per cent at the end of 2005
Matthew Brown, Managing Director, giant group, said: "With City institutions now so profitable it is no surprise to see the public sector lose out in the war for IT talent."
E-government
According to giant, the decline in the percentage of IT contractors in the public sector is also due to the completion of projects associated with the e-government programme - designed to make public services accessible online.
Mr Brown said: "The e-government programme was scheduled for completion by the end of 2005, and with most government services now available electronically, demand for flexible IT skills has stabilised.
"New public sector IT programmes have recycled some of the skills from e-government projects that have wound down, but whether that will be enough to prevent the Government's share of the IT contractor market slipping further remains to be seen."
The Ministry of Defence recently started its £10bn project to design and build a single IT infrastructure for the armed forces, for example.
Giant pointed out that despite being an easy target for Ministers, IT budgets have not been trimmed by recent public sector belt tightening.
Mr Brown said: "The NHS central IT budget has not suffered as a result of the organisation's cash crisis at Trust level, but Trusts have their own budgets for IT projects, and it will interesting to see where on the priority list IT sits if further cuts have to be made."
Demand in the City
According to giant, over the past year the financial services industry has become the fastest-growing sector in terms of utilisation of IT contractors.
A boom in profits is driving spending on new IT systems as investment banks and hedge funds strive to gain a competitive edge.
Compliance remains a major spending priority for IT departments in the City, as does data security.
Regulatory programmes like Basel II and the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive require financial institutions to invest millions of pounds in new IT systems by 2007.
Autor/Author: Susie Hughes
Quelle/Source: Shout 99, 13.06.2006
