Winter job freeze suffers big thaw

The traditional IT winter job freeze hasn't happened this year.

"There are a lot of banks that have realised they need to continue hiring in Q4 to avoid missing out on good candidates," Brent Harris, permanent recruitment manager for IT at Aston Carter, tell us.

Harris says it's all down to market conditions. Such is the dearth of IT talent that banks that might prefer to defer hiring until bonuses have been paid out, are being forced to 'take advantage when good candidates are available."

Lisa Jobson, recruitment director at Harvey Nash attributes the unseasonal enthusiasm is to skills deficits and increased IT investment, both of which mean companies have yet to exhaust headcount budgets for 2006.

She says the most popular job specs are for experts in Java, C# and C++ with front office trading systems experience.