Radical demand for RAD candidates

Are you equipped with rapid application development skills? Banks want to hear from you.

Most IT programmers work on big programs that can take many months - or even years - to complete. But if you have solid rapid application development (RAD) skills, it's possible to earn a basic salary of 70k simply by working on small, tactical development projects.

RAD generally involves working as part of a small team to quickly build tactical tools such as blotters, pricing tools or profit and loss calculators.

Babatunde Ojo, a consultant at recruitment firm Astbury Marsden, says banks are increasingly interested in RAD developments because they are cost-effective and can deliver business value very quickly: "The demand is very much front-office focused and candidates with experience of working in this environment are highly sought after," he says.

Five of the largest clients working with recruitment firm Project Partners are currently looking for RAD programmers for front-office projects, adds Stephanie Sherlock, permanent team manager with the firm. The roles offer basic salaries of at least 65k, plus a bonus.

"RAD development is a pretty steady area of the industry to work in, demand is always reasonably strong," says Sherlock. Employers will usually request at least two years' experience in a front-office role, and strong mathematical and analytical skills. This is in addition to having excellent skills in OO (object oriented) programming languages, along with Microsoft Excel.

"A good RAD developer can have very good prospects in the longer-term," adds Ojo. "The amount of business exposure is huge and can open different career paths such as business analyst or project management," he says.