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IT Director pay surges past 80/hour mark

Published on Jul 26, 2006 | | Contract Rate Checker

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A surge in demand for interim IT Directors, as organisations kick-start new IT projects, has pushed pay up 34% over the past year to £80 per hour, reveals research by iProfileStats/ATSCo.

According to ATSCo, IT departments are coming under
growing pressure to contain the runaway cost of IT projects by reducing permanent staffing costs.

Ann Swain, Chief Executive, ATSCo, commented:

"Contract IT personnel such as Java programmers have long
been a feature of IT departments but until very recently the IT Director would have been a full time employee. That is now changing.

"IT departments are always under pressure to contain budget growth and they are starting to be much more aggressive about controlling the costs of their most senior staff."

She adds: "The work of IT departments tends to be project-led with each stage of an IT project requiring
different skills, so interim staff are a useful tool, which has become more widespread as the market has picked up."

ATSCo says that taking on interim IT Directors allows companies to access the kind of skills and experience they might normally have to purchase at higher rates from blue chip management consulting firms.

Interim IT Directors as 'troubleshooters' for failing IT projects.

According to the report, interim IT Directors are also becoming increasingly popular as troubleshooters who are brought in to turn failing IT projects around.

This is because bespoke IT systems in the corporate and
government sectors are becoming increasingly ambitious and complex, introducing untested technologies for the first time.

Ann Swain says:

"IT Directors being called in as troubleshooters to turn around failing IT projects is a scenario we are definitely seeing more of."

Interim IT Directors recruited to take over 'insourced' IT projects.

According to ATSCo, the recent 'insourcing' trend, whereby organisations bring previously outsourced IT projects back in-house, is also boosting demand for interim IT Directors.

Both Prudential and Sainsbury's have brought part of their outsourced IT operations back in-house within the last year.

Ann Swain says:

"We are seeing organisations recruiting interim IT
Directors to take over IT projects which have been brought back in-house.

"Organisations are looking for the most cost-effective way to rebuild skills and systems that were hollowed out
in the outsourcing process."