Olympics fuels demand for IT contractors

With around five years to go to the 2012 Olympic Games in London, demand for IT contractors for the event is accelerating.

A survey of more than 1,500 IT contractors showed the number of IT contractors in the engineering and construction sector has almost doubled in the past 12 months — 10.2 percent are now gainfully employed in it, compared with 6.3 percent a year ago.

The survey was conducted by contractor services provider, giant group.

Giant group said significant numbers of software engineers with computer modelling skills are required to work on structural analysis of Olympic facilities and infrastructure — which are currently being designed.

Matthew Brown, managing director of giant group, said in a statement: "Programming skills are required during the design phase of Olympics projects. Software engineers will build computer models and run simulations to stress-test every structural part before construction can begin."

"The computer modelling is incredibly exhaustive because engineers need to know designs will work years before they are actually built," said Brown.

Giant group predicts the percentage of IT contractors involved with Olympics projects will increase further as the telecoms and media infrastructure is put in place.