The IT jobs market for permanent staff has increased at its fastest rate for more than three years, according to a new jobs report.
The report from IT recruitment websites CWJobs.co.uk and JobAdsWatch.co.uk revealed that there was an eight percent increase in the number of permanent IT jobs advertised in the latest quarter, compared with the quarter ended March 2010.
This growth is despite the number of adverts for permanent IT jobs in the public sector falling 21 percent in the period. However, CWJobs said that contract work in the public sector "remains relatively buoyant", as the sector posted the second highest number of contract adverts, behind the financial sector.
CWJobs' report supports the survey from pre-employment screening firm Powerchex, which also found that the demand for IT contractors in the financial services had soared from May to June.
The financial sector also posted the most adverts for permanent staff, followed by the media sector. Permanent job adverts for these sectors grew by eight percent and 12 percent, respectively.
In terms of the skills that were in high demand in Q2 2010, CWJobs said that demand for Linux skills had overtaken demand for Unix for the first time. The number of Linux adverts increased by eight percent, putting it tenth in the top 10 advertised software skills.
However, there was little change at the top of the table, with SQL skills being in highest demand, followed by C, C#, .NET and SQL Server.
Richard Nott, website director of CWJobs, said: "It's encouraging to see that overall job postings are continuing to increase. With contract work still available at the moment, there are opportunities in the public sector for those willing and able to be flexible."