What is it with Scotland and IT jobs?

JPMorgan has announced plans to create another 200 software design and developments jobs in Glasgow. It's partly down to penny-pinching, say recruiters.

"JPMorgan opened their first site in Scotland in 1999 because they saw the savings they could make on salaries," says Phil Notley, a consultant at Scotland-based recruiter Cyberteam Resource Management. "They also saw that by basing jobs in Scotland [instead of London], they'd have less of a problem with competitors poaching their staff."

JPMorgan's press release regarding the latest bout of job creation makes no mention of the lower salaries commanded by Glaswegian programmers. It does, however, refer to a 3 million Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) grant, courtesy of Scottish Development International.

Neville Washington, managing director of the newly-opened Scottish office of recruitment firm Harvey Nash, says Scottish IT salaries are relatively modest compared to those on offer in London. An IT programmer in Scotland is likely to earn somewhere between 35,000 and 40,000, says Washington.

By comparison, London recruiters say City-based programmers are on 80,000 plus.

Notley says bonuses are substantially lower in Scotland: while bonuses for IT programmers in the City of London typically range from 20 per cent to 50 per cent, in Scotland he says 5per cent to 12 per cent is the norm.

JPMorgan's latest staffing endeavour is likely to go some way to remedying this. Recruiters say the 200 additional recruits can't be conjured out of thin air and surplus Scottish IT talent is inexistent. "Salaries are already rising above the rate of inflation," says Washington. "This will contribute to that."