Contractor demand growth in the core contracting disciplines grew sharply in Scotland during March 2013, particularly in the IT and computing and engineering and construction sectors. Only interims in the executive and professional sector experienced a reduction in contract availability during the month.
This is according to the latest Bank of Scotland Report on Jobs, which also shows that the rise in engineering contractor demand was the fastest for a year-and-a-half, taking it to second place in the demand league table.
Nursing/medical/care remained in first place, with IT and computing in third place and accounts and financial in fifth place, the latter just about scraping into growth territory. The executive and professional sector, which contracted sharply during March, dropped to seventh place.
“The number of people appointed to both permanent and temporary jobs rose while the number of vacancies increased,” notes Bank of Scotland Chief Economist Donald MacRae. “These results reinforce the view that the Scottish economy is continuing its slow recovery from recession.”
Aberdeen was the only region where contractor demand fell, which is perhaps surprising given the well publicised surge in oil and gas investment occurring this year. A reason could be that projects are taking time to come on-stream. UK video games capital Dundee posted the highest number of contractors available for assignments.
The combination of increased billings – rising for the ninth consecutive month – and the strongest increase in contractor availability since June 2012 suggests that Scotland’s contracting market is well supplied with appropriately skilled contractors.
This balance between demand and supply may also be the reason for rates stabilising during March. Rates did show a marginal increase when compared to the previous month, when rates fell.
When considered overall, the contracting sector’s performance is below that of the UK as a whole. However, demand in non-core temporary sectors, such as blue collar and hotel and catering, fell so steeply that the overall average was dragged down.
When compared to the figures in March 2013’s Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC)/KPMG Report on Jobs, IT and engineering sector performance in Scotland considerably outperformed that over the rest of the UK.