According to the latest Report on Jobs from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC)/KPMG, demand for contractors rose again in January 2012, with a rise that was the strongest since May 2011. Hourly rates of pay for contract staff also increased modestly, which is good news after a slight decrease in December. However, it was also identified that billings from umbrella contractor agencies decreased slightly for the second month running – but this could actually be good news for contractors.

The combination of results indicates that that companies do have assignments available, but that umbrella contractors with appropriate skills, who are based on the correct locations, are simply not unavailable. Which means that umbrella contractors with the required skill sets and are prepared to relocate, whether for a short term contract or on a more long term basis, in order to take advantage of the right opportunity will certainly be at an advantage. Umbrella contractors with skills in Security and Business Analysis were apparently in hard to find in January, alongside Oracle, ..Net, Datastage, Citrix and Firewall contractors as well.