08 November 2007

IT market survey highlights shortage of skilled staff with Australian visas

British specialist IT professionals considering Australian immigration can look forward to salaries up to 30 per cent higher than market rates as staff shortages bite across the country. Technicians with experience in disciplines such as .Net and Java are commanding premiums significantly above the five per cent pay increase received by the general IT market.

British specialist IT professionals considering Australian immigration can look forward to salaries up to 30 per cent higher than market rates as staff shortages bite across the country. Technicians with experience in disciplines such as .Net and Java are commanding premiums significantly above the five per cent pay increase received by the general IT market.

This includes recent university graduates who have up to two years experience, according to the latest research by a top IT recruiter. The Candle ICT Market Analysis Australia 2007 also found that contractors are 20 to 30 per cent better off than permanent staff.

The top IT jobs were in project management and administration. Business analytics, application development, testing, storage and security professionals and helpdesk support are also in demand. The most sought after skills are in C# / .Net, and Java / J2EE. VoIP, SAP, Oracle, Siebel, MSSharePoint, business intelligence (Cognos), and open source web application framework Ruby on Rails were also in the top ten.

These skills are country-wide and the report also reveals that normal contract lengths have recently increased from three to four months to between six and 12 months.

The study surveyed 1,000 business people from the telecommunications, ICT, financial and government sectors.

Australia needs skilled IT workers: Anyone applying for an Australian visa should begin by completing the Australian Visa Bureau's online Australian visa application to see if they meet the Australian visa requirements.