South West SMS Contracts

The table below looks at the demand for Short Message Service (SMS) skills within the South 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 5 September 2008 with a comparison to the same period last year.

Short Message Service (SMS)
Location Aberdeen Basingstoke Berkshire Bristol Buckinghamshire Cambridge Cambridgeshire Canary Wharf Cardiff 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 Kent Lancashire Leeds Leicestershire Livingston London Lytham St Annes M4 Corridor Macclesfield Maidenhead Manchester Middlesex Newcastle Newcastle Upon Tyne North East North Wales North West North Yorkshire Northampton Northamptonshire Penrith Peterborough Portsmouth Reading Redcar Rotherham Scotland Sheffield Slough Somerset South East South Wales South West South Yorkshire Street Sunbury-on-Thames Surrey Thames Ditton Tyne and Wear UK Uxbridge Wakefield Wales West Lothian West Midlands West Yorkshire Witham Wolverhampton Worcester Worcestershire Yorkshire	3 months to 5 Sep 2008	Same period last year
Rank	120	135
Rank change on same period last year	+15
Matching contract IT job ads	24	36
As % of all UK contract IT job ads sampled	0.032 %	0.036 %
As % of the category below	3.376 %	3.746 %
Daily rates quoted	2	8
Average minimum daily rate	£300	£280
Average daily rate	£300	£313
% change on same period last year	-4.00 %
Average maximum daily rate	£300	£345
UK excluding London average daily rate	£278	£300
% change on same period last year	-7.35 %
Hourly rates quoted	10	12
Average minimum hourly rate	£29.10	£25.00
Average hourly rate	£30.15	£28.39
% change on same period last year	+6.18 %
Average maximum hourly rate	£31.20	£31.79
UK excluding London average hourly rate	£26.52	£26.50
% change on same period last year	+0.08 %
Communications & Networking South West
Matching contract IT job ads	711	961
As % of all UK contract IT job ads sampled	0.961 %	0.948 %
Daily rates quoted	201	217
Average minimum daily rate	£311	£329
Average daily rate	£334	£346
% change on same period last year	-3.38 %
Average maximum daily rate	£357	£362
UK excluding London average daily rate	£346	£341
% change on same period last year	+1.49 %
Hourly rates quoted	112	156
Average minimum hourly rate	£25.01	£25.95
Average hourly rate	£26.81	£27.89
% change on same period last year	-3.88 %
Average maximum hourly rate	£28.61	£29.82
UK excluding London average hourly rate	£25.70	£28.54
% change on same period last year	-9.93 %
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 South 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 South West region.

SMS
Daily Rate Histogram

The chart provides a histogram of daily rates quoted in contract IT jobs citing SMS across the South West region over the 3 months to 5 September 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 South West region.

SMS
Hourly Rate Histogram

The chart provides a histogram of hourly rates quoted in contract IT jobs citing SMS across the South West region over the 3 months to 5 September 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 South West region over the 3 months to 5 September 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
Dorset	+4	10	-	-
Gloucestershire	+6	9	£300	+20.00 %
Bristol	+5	1	-	-
Devon	+2	1	-	-
Somerset	+2	1	-	-

SMS England

SMS
Top 30 Related IT Skills

For the 6 months to 5 September 2008, IT contractor jobs across the South 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 32 (51.61 %) 3GPP 1 32 (51.61 %) UMTS 2 31 (50.00 %) C 3 21 (33.87 %) VBScript 4 19 (30.65 %) Perl 5 18 (29.03 %) Telecoms 6 17 (27.42 %) C++ 6 17 (27.42 %) Windows 7 14 (22.58 %) IPsec 8 12 (19.35 %) 3G 8 12 (19.35 %) Active Directory 9 11 (17.74 %) Security Cleared 10 10 (16.13 %) WSUS 10 10 (16.13 %) MOM 11 8 (12.90 %) Health

12 7 (11.29 %) Change Management 13 6 (9.677 %) HSDPA 13 6 (9.677 %) Aerospace 13 6 (9.677 %) UTRAN 13 6 (9.677 %) Embedded C 13 6 (9.677 %) ISEB 13 6 (9.677 %) Application Packaging 14 5 (8.065 %) VERITAS 14 5 (8.065 %) VB 14 5 (8.065 %) Remedy 15 4 (6.452 %) ITIL 15 4 (6.452 %) DHCP 15 4 (6.452 %) Windows Server 2003 15 4 (6.452 %) Citrix 15 4 (6.452 %) HP

SMS
Top Related IT Skills by Category

For the 6 months to 5 September 2008, IT contractor jobs across the South 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 6 (9.677 %) Application Packaging	Communications & Networking 1 32 (51.61 %) 3GPP 1 32 (51.61 %) UMTS 2 14 (22.58 %) IPsec 3 12 (19.35 %) 3G 4 6 (9.677 %) UTRAN 4 6 (9.677 %) HSDPA 5 4 (6.452 %) DHCP 5 4 (6.452 %) DNS 6 2 (3.226 %) LDAP 7 1 (1.613 %) SAN 7 1 (1.613 %) Wireless
Development Applications 1 3 (4.839 %) MSI	General 1 18 (29.03 %) Telecoms 2 8 (12.90 %) Health 3 6 (9.677 %) Aerospace 4 3 (4.839 %) Government 4 3 (4.839 %) Finance 5 1 (1.613 %) Electronics
Job Titles 1 25 (40.32 %) Software Engineer 2 22 (35.48 %) Test Engineer 3 14 (22.58 %) Software Test Engineer 4 11 (17.74 %) Systems Engineer 5 4 (6.452 %) Analyst 5 4 (6.452 %) Applications Packager 5 4 (6.452 %) Systems Test Engineer 6 3 (4.839 %) Deployment Specialist 7 2 (3.226 %) Deployment Analyst 7 2 (3.226 %) Systems Administrator 7 2 (3.226 %) Integration Engineer 7 2 (3.226 %) Systems Integration Engineer 7 2 (3.226 %) UNIX Administrator 7 2 (3.226 %) Support Engineer 7 2 (3.226 %) Systems Support 7 2 (3.226 %) Administrator 7 2 (3.226 %) UNIX Systems Administrator 8 1 (1.613 %) Support Technician 8 1 (1.613 %) Support Analyst 8 1 (1.613 %) Applications Support	Miscellaneous 1 1 (1.613 %) Blackberry 1 1 (1.613 %) Management Information System
Operating Systems 1 17 (27.42 %) Windows 2 4 (6.452 %) Windows Server 2003 3 3 (4.839 %) UNIX 3 3 (4.839 %) Windows XP 4 2 (3.226 %) AIX 4 2 (3.226 %) Solaris 4 2 (3.226 %) Linux 4 2 (3.226 %) Red Hat Linux 4 2 (3.226 %) Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 1 (1.613 %) Windows 2000 5 1 (1.613 %) Windows Vista	Processes & Methodologies 1 11 (17.74 %) Security Cleared 2 7 (11.29 %) Change Management 3 4 (6.452 %) ITIL 3 4 (6.452 %) SC Cleared 4 3 (4.839 %) Software Testing 5 1 (1.613 %) User Acceptance Testing 5 1 (1.613 %) Configuration Management 5 1 (1.613 %) Validation
Programming Languages 1 31 (50.00 %) C 2 21 (33.87 %) VBScript 3 19 (30.65 %) Perl 4 17 (27.42 %) C++ 5 6 (9.677 %) Embedded C 6 5 (8.065 %) VB 7 1 (1.613 %) SQL	Qualifications 1 6 (9.677 %) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance 1 1 (1.613 %) QA	System Software 1 12 (19.35 %) Active Directory 2 3 (4.839 %) NetBackup 3 2 (3.226 %) Backup Exec 3 2 (3.226 %) VMware ESX 3 2 (3.226 %) NFS
Systems Management 1 10 (16.13 %) MOM 1 10 (16.13 %) WSUS 2 2 (3.226 %) Veritas Storage Foundation 2 2 (3.226 %) OpenView 2 2 (3.226 %) CiscoWorks 2 2 (3.226 %) AutoSys 2 2 (3.226 %) Norton AntiVirus 2 2 (3.226 %) NNM 3 1 (1.613 %) Tivoli	Vendors 1 5 (8.065 %) Remedy 1 5 (8.065 %) VERITAS 2 4 (6.452 %) HP 2 4 (6.452 %) Citrix 3 3 (4.839 %) IBM 4 2 (3.226 %) Sun 4 2 (3.226 %) Infovista 4 2 (3.226 %) McAfee Security 4 2 (3.226 %) VMware 4 2 (3.226 %) Fujitsu 4 2 (3.226 %) Symantec 4 2 (3.226 %) Cisco