Increasingly, change management contractors are being coerced into permanent roles

Change management professionals working on IT projects may be in a relative position of safety in the current climate. However, even they are subject to the new era of austerity - banks are increasingly trying to persuade this largely contract workforce to take a permanent position and those that refuse are often being ushered out of the organisation.

For change management professionals, taking the contract route is something of a no-brainer. Depending on your level of superiority or expertise, these positions can pay anything from 550-900 a day, according to recruiters, or (assuming a 47-week year) between 130-211k annually. Permanent roles are more likely to pay around 80k.

On average, it's possible to earn around 30% more working in a change management role as a contractor than in a permanent position, says Paul Wright, manager, technology at Robert Half Financial Services.

For the banks, though, even including benefits packages it's more economical for them to persuade change managers to take the permanent route.

"Banks are asking more contractors working on IT change projects to take a permanent role; partly for cost-reduction reasons, but also in an attempt to ensure the intellectual property about technical infrastructure and the business remains in-house," says Justin Willis, director of IT recruiters Bright Purple. "In some cases where the contractors aren't prepared to take permanent role, banks are allowing their contracts to end."

The good news is that the ongoing regulatory demands are ensuring there's no shortage of work for change management professionals. The likes of Dodd-Frank, FSA Liquidity Reporting and new capital adequacy regulations have prompted an ongoing surge in demand, says Wright.

"There is an impact to financial and management information systems that are required to provide additional granular reporting, both internally and to the regulators," he says. "IT professionals with strong specialised business analysis expertise and project/programme delivery are in increased demand, as are ERP specialists and developers for business improvement and management information systems."

We've suggested before that there have been some internal tensions between permanent employees working on change projects and the highly paid contractors banks have drafted in.

Often, the quality of contractors was variable, with some needing a lot of coaching to get up to speed. Some recruiters have suggested that some of the underperformers are now simply not having their contracts renewed.