Majority of Irish ICT firms increased 2015 headcount

Pro

(Image: Stockfresh)

13 January 2016

More than two thirds (67%) of Irish ICT firms increased their headcount in 2015, with 95% intending an increase in 2016. Of those that saw an increase in 2015, some 14% nearly doubled staff numbers.

These are some of the findings of sixth annual salary survey from recruitment firm Abrivia. The survey polled more than 7,400 clients and 40,000 candidates from the firm’s database.

The survey reports that 96% of firms surveyed plan to increase salaries in 2016, compared with just 75% in 2015. Nearly two thirds (62%) of ICT firms plan to pay bonuses in 2016, the key reason given being to reward staff. More than half of firms surveyed said that they would need more office space to accommodate new hires in 2016.

From an employee perspective, 71% of ICT employees expect a salary rise in 2016, while nearly two thirds (62%) said that basic salary mattered most in terms of reward.

Nearly nine out of 10 (87%) said that they would seek out reviews of the company before accepting an interview offer. More than three quarters (78%) of ICT respondents said that a negative review of a company’s working environment would influence their decision to attend an interview or accept a role. Both of these metrics are the highest among all the employment sectors.

The most sought after skill sets in ICT currently are:

IT security and IT audit professionals
QA/Test and BI/Data professionals
Java, .Net and UI/UX
With increased demand for Ruby, PHP and C++

“2015 was the year of the data breach so we noted a huge increase in demand for IT Security and IT Audit professionals,” said Gareth Fleming, IT recruitment manager. “Bring Your Own Device to Work became much more commonplace in 2015 whilst more companies migrated to the cloud; these and other factors are bringing increased risk to commercial IT environments.”

With so much demand for ICT workers, there were distinct effects seen in the employment market.

“In 2015, there was a marked increase in the instances of counter offers as well as multiple offers for IT job seekers, very reminiscent of the Celtic Tiger days, even for roles with a high candidate to job ratio historically, such as technical support roles,” said Chris Jennings, IT recruitment manager.

TechCentral Reporters