Fears that the struggling financial industry might cut back on IT workers are proving unfounded. According IT recruitment report from specialist financial services recruiter, McGregor Boyall, hiring for both contract and permanent roles has remained steady when compared with the first quarter of 2011.

Volumes are, unsurprisingly still significantly down on the boom times of 2010 but things could be a lot worse.
Laurie Boyall, Managing Director at McGregor Boyall said: “Our findings indicate that the market has now evened out in terms of recovery and that the rapid growth we saw last year has stabilised.”

The results showed that the highest number of vacancies were within risk, representing 16% of all IT requirements received. The report also revealed that 40% of all requirements were within development, with a particular need for those with Java and C# experience.

Boyall added that it was fairly likely that more regulatory reform will take place. This will likely to see financial institutions having to rethink some of their IT strategies and will inevitably lead to a renewed spike in the demand for IT specialists – particularly contractors – to work on large-scale projects.