Belfast baying for IT staff
Belfast rolled out the big guns to promote itself to international banks as a financial IT centre, and it's desperate for experienced software developers.
Last week Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness buried their political differences and donned their PR hats, as they travelled to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to woo international banks over to Northern Ireland, and IT was a key focus.
Belfast is desperate for people with .Net, J2EE and C+++ skills, but is struggling to find the staff for the explosion in positions.
One of the key aims of the NYSE trip was to sway JPMorgan Chase to jump into such a venture, according to the Financial Times. Buy-side and sell-side technology vendor Fidessa is also understood to be considering a Belfast operation.
The country already hosts a thriving financial services IT community. Citigroup employs 400 people in its tech centre in Belfast - in areas of software development and support, technology infrastructure and operations - and plans to up that number to 700 by the end of 2009.
Insurer Liberty Mutual invested 6.6m and took on 240 staff for a new software development centre in September.
Northbrook Technology of Northern Ireland (NTNI), the software development arm of US insurer Allstate Corporation, employs 1,500 in the country. It said that a "serious shortage" of skilled IT workers had forced it to tap talent from India, Poland, Germany, Spain, Portugal and South Africa. Foreign employees now make up 20% of its NI workforce.
Experienced software developers can expect to earn up to 35k with up to 10% bonus in Belfast. Software development team leader salaries would range from 30k up to 38k plus bonus.
