[chrisw]

Hi guys,

I'm in the process of packing up my stuff and moving to England from Australia, I hope to be there by about April or so. I was wondering, though, has the IT market picked up much? I'd be looking for work doing mainly Unix (especially Solaris or Linux), though I know quite a lot of Cisco and some Oracle. Oh, and some Windows too

Any info you had would be great!


Chris

 

[Talat]

It's still pretty poor. Depends where you are looking to work - everywhere you look it seems that people are being laid off and contract rates are being cut. Oracle market is pretty bad at the moment (especially if you're a developer). I suppose you may have more joy as a Unix SA since there will always be support work around.

Talat.

 

[chrisw]

Hi Talat,

Thanks for that. I guess I'm not fussed - geographically, anywhere in the London area. In terms of what I'd want to do, I'm most suited to Solaris/Linux work, my Oracle skills aren't up to that of a development, more of just SA stuff.

Any other info/hints you can give me?


Chris

 

[Joss]

Computer Games

Are doing well

We're always after programmers

Cheers

 

[chrisw]

Joss: surely you need some talented young SAs willing to run all your machines for you?

 

[geezajob]

(tiny plug)

I own Gis-a-Job (largest free recruitment website in the UK.. blah).. we're predominantly an IT based website, and in contact with over 9000 agencies around the UK.

The general concensus, is that while optimism is higher at the start of this year than during the run-down to Christmas, things are still bleak for many.

There will always be some agencies that are doing well (or claim to be) but most agencies have tightened their belts with staff on a knife-edge.

I think much of it is due to a correction in the marketplace, following the end of Y2K issues and a influx of skilled people.

Much of the fat is being trimmed from the marketplace, and will emerge leaner in about June/July time. Fingers crossed.

 

[chrisw]

geeza: Cheers for that, I'll check out the website. There still seems to be lots of stuff on Jobserve and the like, as someone said there's (hopefully) going to be support work for stuff that already exists, if not so much as developing new technologies..


Chris

 

[geezajob]

There are lots of jobs on Gis-a-Job too (72,000 in fact) but that's down from 100,000 in the middle of last year.

Also, while there may appear to be vacancies, some less scrupulous agencies manufacture fake jobs, to get the CVs coming in for when the DO get a vacancy to fill.

Still, for someone who is good at what they do, and prepared to be flexible, finding a job shouldn't be too difficult.

 

[polarbearit]

Depressed...

I think the market is quiet at the moment... People are certainly working for less than previously and the people I've interviewed (for contracts) lately were all willing to work for less (and sometimes much less) than they quoted. Programmers seem to be maintaining decent rates, but money for support/project work seems to be on the floor

Jon