Can retail banks provide sanctuary to IT contractors?

As we've pointed out before, investment banks have been losing their appetite to take on IT contractors as they again commit to permanent hires. UK retail banks, however, are enthusiastically recruiting interim techies.

Ongoing integration work at the likes of Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group has provided a steady stream of work for IT contractors within large UK retail banks.

However, Barclays also unveiled plans this week to spend 250m every year until 2014 overhauling IT systems and refurbishing branches as it looks to generate a greater proportion of its earnings through its retail arm.

"The integration work is creating huge IT projects, but they only have a finite lifecycle, so bringing in contractors for the short to medium term is the preferred option," says Chris Potter, PricewaterhouseCoopers' technology assurance partner. "They're also investing in customer relationship management programmes, but retail banks' cautious outlook means few are committing to permanent hires. Again, contractors are benefiting."

There has been something of a "mini-boom" for contractors within retail banks, confirms Neil Price, managing consultant at recruiters Hudson IT.

"The market is better now, than at any point over the last three years," he says. "Banks are investing in customer-facing technologies, such as mobile phone applications and online banking, as well as integration work and back office systems."

It's not really possible for techies currently working in an investment bank to migrate across for these customer-facing IT roles, says Price, but there's a lot of crossover elsewhere.

"For the support, enhancement and engineering of back office systems, there's a lot of overlap, and it's possible for contractors to move across," he says.

As we've also alluded to previously, senior roles around change management and integration projects within retail banking can pay very well indeed.