Applications Support Contracts

This section looks at the demand for the Applications Support role in IT contracts across the UK compared to all other Job Titles we currently track. Included is a guide to the contractor rates offered in IT job ads that have cited Applications Support in their job title over the 3 months to 4 July 2008 with a comparison to the same period last year.

Application Support
Location Aberdeen Alderley Edge Berkshire Birmingham Bradford Bristol Buckinghamshire Burton-upon-Trent Canary Wharf Cannock Carlisle Cheshire Chesterfield Chorley City of London Crawley Cumbria Derbyshire Docklands, London Durham East Anglia East Midlands East of England Edinburgh England Essex Gatwick Glasgow Gloucester Gloucestershire Gosport Guildford Hammersmith Hampshire Harrow Hemel Hempstead Herefordshire Hertfordshire Highlands Hinckley Kent Kingston Upon Thames Lancashire Leeds Leicestershire London Loughborough Maidenhead Manchester Middlesex Midlands Milton Keynes Newcastle Newcastle Upon Tyne Newry North East North West Northampton Northamptonshire Northern Ireland Nottingham Nottinghamshire Oxfordshire Paisley Portsmouth Reading Renfrewshire Romford Scotland Sheffield South East South Wales South West South Yorkshire Southampton Staffordshire Suffolk Sunbury-on-Thames Surrey Swansea Swindon Thames Valley Tonbridge Tyne and Wear UK Uxbridge Wales Warwick Warwickshire Watford West Midlands West Sussex West Wales West Yorkshire Wilmslow Wiltshire Worcester Worcestershire Yorkshire	3 months to 4 Jul 2008	Same period last year
Rank	176	191
Rank change on same period last year	+15
Matching contract IT job ads	702	793
As % of all UK contract IT job ads sampled	0.926 %	0.841 %
As % of the category below	1.024 %	0.918 %
Daily rates quoted	260	257
Average minimum daily rate	£345	£368
Average daily rate	£372	£387
% change on same period last year	-3.77 %
Average maximum daily rate	£399	£405
UK excluding London average daily rate	£303	£305
% change on same period last year	-0.76 %
Hourly rates quoted	46	49
Average minimum hourly rate	£23.02	£20.72
Average hourly rate	£24.66	£21.72
% change on same period last year	+13.53 %
Average maximum hourly rate	£26.30	£22.72
UK excluding London average hourly rate	£27.18	£19.78
% change on same period last year	+37.40 %
Job Titles UK
Matching contract IT job ads	68554	86361
As % of all UK contract IT job ads sampled	90.40 %	91.61 %
Daily rates quoted	21954	24993
Average minimum daily rate	£378	£392
Average daily rate	£405	£417
% change on same period last year	-3.05 %
Average maximum daily rate	£431	£443
UK excluding London average daily rate	£361	£352
% change on same period last year	+2.55 %
Hourly rates quoted	5870	6957
Average minimum hourly rate	£21.98	£24.55
Average hourly rate	£23.60	£26.06
% change on same period last year	-9.41 %
Average maximum hourly rate	£25.22	£27.56
UK excluding London average hourly rate	£23.28	£26.07
% change on same period last year	-10.69 %

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.

Applications Support
Demand Trend

The chart provides the 3-month moving total beginning in 2004 of IT contractor jobs citing Applications Support within the UK as a proportion of the total demand within the Job Titles category.

Applications Support
Daily Rate Trend

The chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in IT contract jobs citing Applications Support within the UK.

Applications Support
Daily Rate Histogram

The chart provides a histogram of daily rates quoted in contract IT jobs citing Applications Support within the UK over the 3 months to 4 July 2008.

Applications Support
Hourly Rate Trend

The chart provides the 3-month moving average for hourly rates quoted in IT contractor jobs citing Applications Support within the UK.

Applications Support
Hourly Rate Histogram

The chart provides a histogram of hourly rates quoted in contract IT jobs citing Applications Support within the UK over the 3 months to 4 July 2008.

Applications Support
Top 30 Contract Locations

This section looks at the demand and provides a guide to the average contractor rates quoted in IT job ads citing Applications Support within the UK over the 3 months to 4 July 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
England	+20	660	£374	-3.48 %
London	+19	430	£397	-2.49 %
City of London	+1	163	£411	-10.52 %
South East	-4	98	£310	+4.59 %
Scotland	+44	36	£269	-25.49 %
Berkshire	+28	34	£324	+4.85 %
North West	+10	33	£314	-23.30 %
East Midlands	+3	24	£266	-
Reading	+7	22	£326	-
Manchester	-6	19	£400	-
West Midlands	-8	17	£219	+9.37 %
Glasgow	+10	15	£325	-15.85 %
South West	+26	15	£260	-3.40 %
Yorkshire	+15	14	£375	+108.33 %
East of England	-11	13	£331	+1.32 %
Buckinghamshire	+11	12	£192	-42.78 %
Hampshire	+10	12	£450	+17.18 %
Surrey	-10	12	£258	+1.63 %
North East	+19	11	£308	-
West Yorkshire	+3	10	£350	+94.44 %
Nottinghamshire	-10	10	-	-
Nottingham	-1	10	-	-
Milton Keynes	0	9	£208	-23.14 %
Cumbria	-	9	£345	-
Kent	+16	8	£281	-
West Sussex	+7	8	£313	+17.22 %
Midlands	+2	8	£350	-
Wiltshire	+14	7	-	-
Docklands, London	0	7	£250	-43.05 %
Leeds	-9	6	-	-

Applications Support
Top 30 Related IT Skills

For the 6 months to 4 July 2008, IT contractor jobs within the UK that cited Applications Support in their job title 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 with Applications Support in their job title.

1 617 (45.20 %) SQL 2 421 (30.84 %) Unix 3 284 (20.81 %) Oracle 4 267 (19.56 %) Banking 5 261 (19.12 %) Finance 6 229 (16.78 %) Front Office 7 222 (16.26 %) SQL Server 8 205 (15.02 %) Windows 9 199 (14.58 %) .NET 10 172 (12.60 %) Sybase 11 168 (12.31 %) Java 12 159 (11.65 %) Investment Banking 13 149 (10.92 %) Perl 14 138 (10.11 %) Microsoft 15 121 (8.864 %) VB

16 109 (7.985 %) Fixed Income 17 101 (7.399 %) ITIL 18 94 (6.886 %) Linux 19 86 (6.300 %) Equities 20 85 (6.227 %) Derivative 21 84 (6.154 %) C# 22 80 (5.861 %) Shell Script 23 72 (5.275 %) Solaris 24 67 (4.908 %) Foreign Exchange (FX) 25 66 (4.835 %) XML 25 66 (4.835 %) Problem Management 26 64 (4.689 %) HTML 26 64 (4.689 %) PL/SQL 27 62 (4.542 %) Business Objects 27 62 (4.542 %) BusinessObjects

Applications Support
Top Related IT Skills by Category

For the 6 months to 4 July 2008, IT contractor jobs within the UK that cited Applications Support in their job title 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 with Applications Support in their job title. Up to 20 skills are shown per category.

Application Development 1 199 (14.58 %) .NET 2 66 (4.835 %) XML 3 64 (4.689 %) HTML 4 60 (4.396 %) ASP 5 58 (4.249 %) ASP.NET 6 45 (3.297 %) J2EE 7 24 (1.758 %) CSS 7 24 (1.758 %) WebSphere 8 23 (1.685 %) XSLT 9 21 (1.538 %) WebServices 10 19 (1.392 %) .NET Framework 11 17 (1.245 %) JSP 12 15 (1.099 %) FIX Protocol 13 14 (1.026 %) Middleware 14 8 (0.586 %) Application Packaging 15 7 (0.513 %) Struts 16 6 (0.440 %) EJB 16 6 (0.440 %) Swing 16 6 (0.440 %) Spring 17 5 (0.366 %) SAP XI	Application Platforms 1 58 (4.249 %) SharePoint 2 41 (3.004 %) WebLogic 3 31 (2.271 %) IIS 4 30 (2.198 %) LiveLink 5 24 (1.758 %) Apache 6 18 (1.319 %) BizTalk Server 7 16 (1.172 %) Tomcat 8 13 (0.952 %) WebSphere Application Server 9 12 (0.879 %) JBoss 9 12 (0.879 %) Lotus Notes 10 11 (0.806 %) Oracle Workflow 11 9 (0.659 %) MS Exchange 11 9 (0.659 %) MQSeries 12 8 (0.586 %) Documentum 12 8 (0.586 %) Content Management Server 13 7 (0.513 %) CMS 14 6 (0.440 %) SharePoint Portal Server 14 6 (0.440 %) WebSphere MQ 15 5 (0.366 %) IBM HTTP Server 16 4 (0.293 %) Exchange Server 2000
Applications 1 61 (4.469 %) MS Excel 2 42 (3.077 %) MS Office 3 7 (0.513 %) MS Visio 4 3 (0.220 %) MS PowerPoint 5 2 (0.147 %) MS Project 5 2 (0.147 %) Acrobat 6 1 (0.073 %) Maya 6 1 (0.073 %) NASTRAN	Business Applications 1 13 (0.952 %) Oracle EBS 2 12 (0.879 %) assyst 3 9 (0.659 %) Oracle Applications 3 9 (0.659 %) Summit 3 9 (0.659 %) MarketView 3 9 (0.659 %) Oracle Financials 3 9 (0.659 %) Microsoft CRM 3 9 (0.659 %) Great Plains 4 8 (0.586 %) arcHouse 5 7 (0.513 %) Endur 6 6 (0.440 %) MAXIMO 7 5 (0.366 %) SAP WM 8 4 (0.293 %) Bond Adapt 8 4 (0.293 %) Advent Geneva 9 3 (0.220 %) INSURE/90 9 3 (0.220 %) Sophis VALUE 9 3 (0.220 %) Academy Housing 9 3 (0.220 %) Kondor+ 9 3 (0.220 %) Oracle 11i 9 3 (0.220 %) Movex
Communications & Networking 1 44 (3.223 %) Internet 2 35 (2.564 %) Intranet 3 13 (0.952 %) WAN 4 12 (0.879 %) HTTP 5 11 (0.806 %) LAN 5 11 (0.806 %) DNS 6 10 (0.733 %) SMS 7 9 (0.659 %) Extranet 8 6 (0.440 %) Firewall 8 6 (0.440 %) TCP/IP 8 6 (0.440 %) BIG-IP 9 5 (0.366 %) FTP 9 5 (0.366 %) SSL 10 4 (0.293 %) BSS 11 3 (0.220 %) HTTPS 11 3 (0.220 %) WINS 11 3 (0.220 %) LDAP 11 3 (0.220 %) Broadband 12 1 (0.073 %) GPRS 12 1 (0.073 %) CTI	Database & Business Intelligence 1 222 (16.26 %) SQL Server 2 62 (4.542 %) BusinessObjects 3 49 (3.590 %) MS Access 4 46 (3.370 %) SQL Server 2000 5 35 (2.564 %) SQL Server 2005 6 34 (2.491 %) Oracle 8/8i 6 34 (2.491 %) DB2 7 32 (2.344 %) Crystal Reports 7 32 (2.344 %) RDBMS 8 26 (1.905 %) Oracle Reports 9 19 (1.392 %) Oracle 10g 10 18 (1.319 %) SQL Server 7 11 14 (1.026 %) Oracle 9i 12 13 (0.952 %) MySQL 13 12 (0.879 %) DTS 14 11 (0.806 %) Datawarehouse 14 11 (0.806 %) Oracle Discoverer 14 11 (0.806 %) DataStage 14 11 (0.806 %) SQL Server Reporting Services 15 10 (0.733 %) EDRMS
Development Applications 1 10 (0.733 %) Oracle Forms 2 9 (0.659 %) Visual Studio 3 7 (0.513 %) JUnit 4 6 (0.440 %) Eclipse 5 5 (0.366 %) TestDirector 6 4 (0.293 %) PowerBuilder 6 4 (0.293 %) PVCS 6 4 (0.293 %) MSI 7 3 (0.220 %) XMLSpy 7 3 (0.220 %) ReSharper 7 3 (0.220 %) Oracle APEX 7 3 (0.220 %) Selenium 7 3 (0.220 %) FitNesse 7 3 (0.220 %) JDeveloper 8 2 (0.147 %) Dreamweaver 8 2 (0.147 %) ClearCase 8 2 (0.147 %) ClearQuest 8 2 (0.147 %) NUnit 9 1 (0.073 %) JIRA 9 1 (0.073 %) WebSphere Studio Application Developer	General 1 267 (19.56 %) Banking 2 261 (19.12 %) Finance 3 229 (16.78 %) Front Office 4 159 (11.65 %) Investment Banking 5 62 (4.542 %) Back Office 6 48 (3.516 %) Government 7 26 (1.905 %) Telecoms 8 25 (1.832 %) Health 9 23 (1.685 %) Insurance 10 20 (1.465 %) Local Government 11 16 (1.172 %) Pharmaceutical 12 12 (0.879 %) Retail 13 11 (0.806 %) Financial Institution 13 11 (0.806 %) Education 14 10 (0.733 %) Law 15 8 (0.586 %) Legal 15 8 (0.586 %) Publishing 16 7 (0.513 %) Manufacturing 17 6 (0.440 %) Marketing 18 4 (0.293 %) Billing
Miscellaneous 1 109 (7.985 %) Fixed Income 2 86 (6.300 %) Equities 3 85 (6.227 %) Derivative 4 67 (4.908 %) Foreign Exchange (FX) 5 35 (2.564 %) Asset Management 6 30 (2.198 %) AS400 7 28 (2.051 %) Equity Derivative 8 17 (1.245 %) Management Information System 9 15 (1.099 %) Fund Management 9 15 (1.099 %) Credit Risk 10 14 (1.026 %) Replication 11 13 (0.952 %) Client/Server 12 11 (0.806 %) Statistics 13 9 (0.659 %) NHS 14 8 (0.586 %) Mainframe 14 8 (0.586 %) Interest Rate Derivative 14 8 (0.586 %) Market Risk 15 7 (0.513 %) Fat Client 15 7 (0.513 %) French Language 15 7 (0.513 %) German Language	Operating Systems 1 421 (30.84 %) Unix 2 205 (15.02 %) Windows 3 94 (6.886 %) Linux 4 72 (5.275 %) Solaris 5 34 (2.491 %) Windows XP 6 28 (2.051 %) Windows 2000 7 25 (1.832 %) AIX 8 18 (1.319 %) Windows NT 9 11 (0.806 %) Windows Server 2003 10 10 (0.733 %) HPUX 11 5 (0.366 %) MVS 12 2 (0.147 %) Windows Vista 12 2 (0.147 %) FreeBSD
Processes & Methodologies 1 101 (7.399 %) ITIL 2 66 (4.835 %) Problem Management 3 43 (3.150 %) Project Management 4 40 (2.930 %) Security Cleared 5 37 (2.711 %) Release Management 6 36 (2.637 %) Investment Management 6 36 (2.637 %) Service Delivery 7 35 (2.564 %) Migration 7 35 (2.564 %) Incident Management 8 34 (2.491 %) CRM 8 34 (2.491 %) User Acceptance Testing 9 31 (2.271 %) Change Management 10 29 (2.125 %) Workflow 11 22 (1.612 %) ERP 12 21 (1.538 %) Web Development 12 21 (1.538 %) SC Cleared 13 20 (1.465 %) Service Management 14 19 (1.392 %) OO 15 17 (1.245 %) E-Commerce 15 17 (1.245 %) Risk Management	Programming Languages 1 617 (45.20 %) SQL 2 168 (12.31 %) Java 3 149 (10.92 %) Perl 4 121 (8.864 %) VB 5 84 (6.154 %) C# 6 80 (5.861 %) Shell Script 7 64 (4.689 %) PL/SQL 8 48 (3.516 %) Transact-SQL 9 45 (3.297 %) JavaScript 10 43 (3.150 %) VB.NET 10 43 (3.150 %) VBA 11 42 (3.077 %) VB6 12 41 (3.004 %) VBScript 13 37 (2.711 %) C++ 14 25 (1.832 %) C 15 21 (1.538 %) PHP 16 15 (1.099 %) Korn 17 10 (0.733 %) AWK 18 8 (0.586 %) RPG 19 7 (0.513 %) Tcl
Qualifications 1 54 (3.956 %) Degree 2 12 (0.879 %) Microsoft Certification 3 9 (0.659 %) MCSE 4 8 (0.586 %) ITIL Certification 5 3 (0.220 %) PhD 5 3 (0.220 %) MCP 6 2 (0.147 %) MCSA 7 1 (0.073 %) HND 7 1 (0.073 %) ISEB 7 1 (0.073 %) MOS	Quality Assurance & Compliance 1 35 (2.564 %) SLA 2 15 (1.099 %) QA 3 9 (0.659 %) Sarbanes-Oxley 4 1 (0.073 %) HL7 4 1 (0.073 %) BS7799
System Software 1 21 (1.538 %) Active Directory 2 2 (0.147 %) ISA Server 3 1 (0.073 %) VMware Infrastructure 3 1 (0.073 %) Terminal Server 3 1 (0.073 %) Tivoli Workload Scheduler 3 1 (0.073 %) MSMQ	Systems Management 1 31 (2.271 %) AutoSys 2 16 (1.172 %) CONTROL-M 3 6 (0.440 %) Tivoli 4 5 (0.366 %) OpenView 4 5 (0.366 %) Systems Management Server (SMS) 4 5 (0.366 %) OVSD 5 4 (0.293 %) SCOM 6 3 (0.220 %) Unicenter 7 1 (0.073 %) MOM 7 1 (0.073 %) Netcool 7 1 (0.073 %) BMC PATROL 7 1 (0.073 %) Netcool/Proviso 7 1 (0.073 %) Nagios 7 1 (0.073 %) CA SiteMinder 7 1 (0.073 %) TIBCO Hawk
Vendors 1 284 (20.81 %) Oracle 2 172 (12.60 %) Sybase 3 138 (10.11 %) Microsoft 4 62 (4.542 %) Business Objects 5 59 (4.322 %) Bloomberg 6 54 (3.956 %) Reuters 7 25 (1.832 %) IBM 8 23 (1.685 %) SAP 8 23 (1.685 %) Remedy 8 23 (1.685 %) JD Edwards 9 22 (1.612 %) GL TRADE 10 21 (1.538 %) Sophis 11 20 (1.465 %) HP 11 20 (1.465 %) Citrix 12 18 (1.319 %) Red Hat 13 17 (1.245 %) Cramer 13 17 (1.245 %) Sun 14 16 (1.172 %) Fidessa 14 16 (1.172 %) Siebel 15 13 (0.952 %) Altiris