IT jobs market fending off credit crunch

The IT jobs market is resisting the pressures of the looming recession, with employment opportunities remaining stable, figures from a recruitment firm suggest.

The number of IT-testing roles increased by 8.3 percent in the year's second quarter and developer positions also increased slightly, according to recruitment company The IT Job Board.

Jobs in support and programming also remained stable, with only development and management roles seeing a small decline over the year, although the recruiter said senior roles will rise again in the autumn.

The big winners could be those seeking employment in investment banking and hedge funds, with available positions rising by 50 percent in the second quarter.

Adam Stokes, operations manager at The IT Job Board, said: "The good news is that we are seeing stability across IT positions as a whole, with no further significant drops since the beginning of the year. In fact, an increase in networking positions is a positive sign that infrastructure projects are still going ahead."

The results of a separate survey also seem to indicate that the IT market remains bullish despite the credit crunch.

The latest survey from IT recruitment firm Computer People found that only 62 percent of IT professionals polled considered job security as an important factor when looking for work.

Nick Dettmar, managing director of Computer People, said the results were surprising, especially in the current employment climate.

Dettmar said: "Having some sense of job stability was often at the forefront of an employee's job-hunting criteria, so these results perhaps indicate a change of values."

The 5,000 IT workers polled placed greater importance on having a role that was challenging and with adequate resources. Computer People claimed this indicates that individuals are demanding more from potential employers.