North West SMS Contracts

The table below looks at the demand for Short Message Service (SMS) skills within the North West region with a comparison to our Communications & Networking category. Included is a guide to the contractor rates offered in IT jobs that have cited SMS over the 3 months to 10 October 2008 with a comparison to the same period last year.

Short Message Service (SMS)
Location Basingstoke Berkshire Bracknell Bristol Buckinghamshire Cambridge Cambridgeshire Chelmsford Cheshire Chester City of London Clapham Coventry Cumbria Deeside Devon Docklands, London Dorset East Lothian East Midlands East of England Edinburgh England Essex Exeter Farnborough Flintshire Glasgow Gloucester Gloucestershire Hampshire Hemel Hempstead Hereford Herefordshire Hertfordshire Huntingdon Kent Lancashire Leicester Leicestershire Lincolnshire Livingston London Lytham St Annes M4 Corridor Maidenhead Manchester Middlesex Milton Keynes Newbury Newcastle Newcastle Upon Tyne Norfolk North East North Wales North West Northampton Northamptonshire Penrith Peterborough Portsmouth Reading Rotherham Runcorn Scotland Sheffield Slough Somerset South East South Wales South West South Yorkshire Street Sunbury-on-Thames Surrey Swindon Tyne and Wear UK Wakefield Wales West Lothian West Midlands West Yorkshire Wiltshire Witham Wolverhampton Worcester Worcestershire Yorkshire	3 months to 10 Oct 2008	Same period last year
Rank	106	136
Rank change on same period last year	+30
Matching contract IT job ads	21	11
As % of all UK contract IT job ads sampled	0.030 %	0.011 %
As % of the category below	4.575 %	1.803 %
Daily rates quoted	4	3
Average minimum daily rate	£285	£268
Average daily rate	£291	£268
% change on same period last year	+8.30 %
Average maximum daily rate	£296	£268
UK excluding London average daily rate	£294	£258
% change on same period last year	+13.88 %
Hourly rates quoted	2	2
Average minimum hourly rate	£20.00	£20.67
Average hourly rate	£27.50	£20.67
% change on same period last year	+33.06 %
Average maximum hourly rate	£35.00	£20.67
UK excluding London average hourly rate	£26.14	£25.15
% change on same period last year	+3.91 %
Communications & Networking North West
Matching contract IT job ads	459	610
As % of all UK contract IT job ads sampled	0.646 %	0.616 %
Daily rates quoted	101	113
Average minimum daily rate	£314	£325
Average daily rate	£327	£335
% change on same period last year	-2.47 %
Average maximum daily rate	£340	£346
UK excluding London average daily rate	£352	£335
% change on same period last year	+4.78 %
Hourly rates quoted	77	91
Average minimum hourly rate	£24.02	£23.32
Average hourly rate	£26.89	£24.38
% change on same period last year	+10.30 %
Average maximum hourly rate	£29.77	£25.45
UK excluding London average hourly rate	£27.43	£28.95
% change on same period last year	-5.27 %
SMS England

We calculate average IT contractor rates directly from the figures quoted and do not attempt to derive hourly rates from daily rates or vice versa.

SMS
Demand Trend

The chart provides a 3-month moving total beginning in 2004 of IT contractor jobs citing SMS across the North West region as a proportion of the total demand within the Communications & Networking category.

SMS
Daily Rate Trend

The chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in IT contract jobs citing SMS across the North West region.

SMS
Daily Rate Histogram

The chart provides a histogram of daily rates quoted in contract IT jobs citing SMS across the North West region over the 3 months to 10 October 2008.

SMS
Hourly Rate Trend

The chart provides the 3-month moving average for hourly rates quoted in IT contractor jobs citing SMS across the North West region.

SMS
Hourly Rate Histogram

The chart provides a histogram of hourly rates quoted in contract IT jobs citing SMS across the North West region over the 3 months to 10 October 2008.

SMS
Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the average contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SMS within the North West region over the 3 months to 10 October 2008. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 3 month period last year. A positive number indicates a relative increase in demand.

Location	Rank Change on Same Period Last Last	Matching Contract IT Job Ads	Average Daily Rate Last 3 Months	Average Daily Rate % Change on Same Period Last Year
Cheshire	+14	7	£266	-
Manchester	-3	4	-	-
Cumbria	-3	2	-	-
Lancashire	+5	1	£365	+30.35 %

SMS England

SMS
Top 30 Related IT Skills

For the 6 months to 10 October 2008, IT contractor jobs across the North West region citing SMS also mentioned the following IT skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the number of jobs and their proportion against the total number of contract IT job ads sampled that cited SMS.

1 14 (45.16 %) Windows 2 11 (35.48 %) Active Directory 2 11 (35.48 %) Windows Server 2003 3 8 (25.81 %) Microsoft Certification 3 8 (25.81 %) MCSE 4 7 (22.58 %) SAN 4 7 (22.58 %) EMC 4 7 (22.58 %) Service Management 5 5 (16.13 %) Clustering 5 5 (16.13 %) MS Exchange 5 5 (16.13 %) Citrix 5 5 (16.13 %) MCP 5 5 (16.13 %) Exchange Server 2003 6 4 (12.90 %) SCCM 6 4 (12.90 %) Windows XP

7 3 (9.677 %) VMware 8 2 (6.452 %) VMware Infrastructure 8 2 (6.452 %) Problem Management 8 2 (6.452 %) Terminal Services 8 2 (6.452 %) Telecoms 8 2 (6.452 %) Lotus Notes 8 2 (6.452 %) Lotus 8 2 (6.452 %) OpenView Configuration Management 8 2 (6.452 %) Java 9 1 (3.226 %) Perl 9 1 (3.226 %) SQL 9 1 (3.226 %) VBScript 9 1 (3.226 %) .NET 9 1 (3.226 %) J2EE 9 1 (3.226 %) JSP

SMS
Top Related IT Skills by Category

For the 6 months to 10 October 2008, IT contractor jobs across the North West region citing SMS also mentioned the following IT skills grouped by category. The figures indicate the number of jobs and their proportion against the total number of contract IT job ads sampled that cited SMS. Up to 20 skills are shown per category.

Application Development 1 1 (3.226 %) .NET 1 1 (3.226 %) J2EE 1 1 (3.226 %) JSP 1 1 (3.226 %) WebServices 1 1 (3.226 %) J2ME 1 1 (3.226 %) Application Packaging	Application Platforms 1 5 (16.13 %) MS Exchange 1 5 (16.13 %) Exchange Server 2003 2 2 (6.452 %) Lotus Notes 3 1 (3.226 %) Apache 3 1 (3.226 %) Tomcat
Communications & Networking 1 7 (22.58 %) SAN 2 1 (3.226 %) Internet 2 1 (3.226 %) SMPP 2 1 (3.226 %) VLAN	Development Applications 1 1 (3.226 %) MSI
General 1 2 (6.452 %) Telecoms 2 1 (3.226 %) Finance 2 1 (3.226 %) Law 2 1 (3.226 %) Banking	Job Titles 1 6 (19.35 %) Support Engineer 1 6 (19.35 %) Administrator 2 5 (16.13 %) Analyst 3 4 (12.90 %) Server Support 3 4 (12.90 %) Server Engineer 3 4 (12.90 %) Server Support Engineer 4 3 (9.677 %) Wintel Engineer 4 3 (9.677 %) Consultant 4 3 (9.677 %) Coordinator 4 3 (9.677 %) Developer 5 2 (6.452 %) Test Analyst 5 2 (6.452 %) Operations Analyst 5 2 (6.452 %) Problem Manager 5 2 (6.452 %) IT Support Engineer 5 2 (6.452 %) Senior Analyst 5 2 (6.452 %) Infrastructure Engineer 5 2 (6.452 %) Java Developer 5 2 (6.452 %) Exchange Engineer 5 2 (6.452 %) Wintel Support 5 2 (6.452 %) EMC Engineer
Miscellaneous 1 5 (16.13 %) Clustering 2 1 (3.226 %) Social Network 2 1 (3.226 %) NHS	Operating Systems 1 14 (45.16 %) Windows 2 11 (35.48 %) Windows Server 2003 3 4 (12.90 %) Windows XP 4 1 (3.226 %) UNIX 4 1 (3.226 %) Solaris 4 1 (3.226 %) Linux 4 1 (3.226 %) Windows Vista
Processes & Methodologies 1 7 (22.58 %) Service Management 2 2 (6.452 %) Problem Management 3 1 (3.226 %) ITIL 3 1 (3.226 %) CRM 3 1 (3.226 %) E-Commerce 3 1 (3.226 %) Service Delivery 3 1 (3.226 %) Network Design 3 1 (3.226 %) Logistics 3 1 (3.226 %) Web Development 3 1 (3.226 %) Business Desktop Deployment	Programming Languages 1 2 (6.452 %) Java 2 1 (3.226 %) Perl 2 1 (3.226 %) SQL 2 1 (3.226 %) VBScript 2 1 (3.226 %) Shell Script 2 1 (3.226 %) C 2 1 (3.226 %) C#
Qualifications 1 8 (25.81 %) MCSE 1 8 (25.81 %) Microsoft Certification 2 5 (16.13 %) MCP 3 1 (3.226 %) MCDST 3 1 (3.226 %) ISEB	System Software 1 11 (35.48 %) Active Directory 2 2 (6.452 %) Terminal Services 2 2 (6.452 %) VMware Infrastructure 3 1 (3.226 %) VMware ESX
Systems Management 1 4 (12.90 %) SCCM 2 2 (6.452 %) OpenView Configuration Management	Vendors 1 7 (22.58 %) EMC 2 5 (16.13 %) Citrix 3 3 (9.677 %) VMware 4 2 (6.452 %) Lotus 5 1 (3.226 %) Symantec 5 1 (3.226 %) NetApp