GCC banks looking to snap up senior technologists

While the financial sector in Europe and the US looks to cut back on the amount it spends on technology, the Middle East continues to play catch up and is still shelling out on IT. Sadly, demand for developers is waning nonetheless, but firms are still eager to recruit at the senior end.

Retail banks in the Middle East are likely to spend up to $9bn on business intelligence technology until 2012, according to research from Datamonitor. Similarly, consultancy Celent predicts that IT spend growth among financial institutions will shift from developed countries such as the US and UK to emerging markets like the Middle East.

Rajeev Lalwani, who leads KPMG's IT Advisory practice in Dubai, tells us that while he expects certain sectors like real estate and construction to curb their IT spend this year, financial services firms will not because of their shear reliance on technology.

Ash Athawale, senior consultant with Robert Half's technology division in Dubai, says the greatest demand has been for project managers and business analysts, but that financial firms are less inclined to take on developers.

"There are certainly opportunities in financial services, banking and finance and accounting departments of companies for technology professionals who are skilled in aspects of integration, implementation, analysis, upgrades and the like," he says.

The amount of consolidation among financial firms within the Middle East this year is tipped to surge, as the financial crisis begins to bite, and this is leading to an increased demand for technologists to integrate disparate systems, says Athawale.

Vhavin Vyas, senior consultant who focuses on technology roles at Hudson in Dubai, agrees with this sentiment.

"The main demand that we're seeing in IT coming up is for project managers with integration experience," he says. "Banks and financial services firms are doing some major system overhauls, and they are looking for people who don't just have experience managing project after project, but who have expertise on migrating data from one platform to another."

In spite of the bullish sentiments coming from the IT in finance sector within Dubai, banks are still looking to cut corners when it comes to hiring.

"Companies are finding a way to complete projects with fewer people," says Athawale.