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(Reprinted from an article that appeared in the National Post, March 15, 2006)
Click here to download the pdf version  (2.0M)
By Danny Bradbury
 If there is one sector more volatile
than most in recent times, it is high
tech. In the past decade, industry
professionals have ridden the
heights of the dot-com boom and
plunged into the depths of the post-bubble
crash. Today, conditions are more temperate
as the economy evens out. The
prospects for technology professionals still
exist, but there is a strong emphasis on
business need. Gone are the days when
managers could afford to throw cash at a
tech problem in the vague hope of a future
return.
Immediate business concerns such as
compliance and security are informing recruitment
decisions on the technology
side. “Because of the corporate governance
and the security aspect of
what is happening in the
marketplace [for example
S a r b a n n e s - Ox l e y ] ,
security has become a
really big issue in the marketplace,
so it has pushed
the demand up for security
and audit people in the IT
area,” says Sandra Levoy
regional vice-president at
recruitment consultancy Robert Half
Technology.
Robert Half ’s 2006 salary guide, compiled
by extrapolating actual placement
salaries in 2005, predicts a 4.6% increase in
data security analyst salaries this year,
pushing the ceiling from $90,250 to
$96,250. IT auditors are set to jump by 7%,
topping out at $87,500 this year, according
to the report.
At the very high end in the C-suite,
things look relatively stable judging from
the Robert Half figures. The chief information
officer (CIO) can expect a moderate
2.1% salary increase this year, inching the
maximumpayment up to $172,000.
There are also some regional trends, according
to the report. In Vancouver, energy,
oil, and gas companies are demanding project
managers, software architects, and
business intelligence specialists, says the
report. Software development companies
are also looking for Web development staff,
says Brian Allen, president of high-tech recruitment
specialist Blackshire in New
Westminster, B.C.
“There is a lot of Web-based development
work going on both in IT departments
and high-technology companies producing
Web-based applications for licence
and resale,” says Mr. Allen, highlighting
bothMicrosoft and open source-based platforms
as hot development platforms. “We
are staffing those jobs for $85,000 right
now. Senior developers come with that
kind of income.”
The Robert Half survey posits $92,000
for senior Web developers this year — up
from $90,500 in 2005.
Java skills are in particularly high demand,
according to Karen Agulnik,
founder of Toronto-based boutique agency
Apex Search. She adds that clients are talking
a lot about Ajax. This is a programming
technique enabling Web
pages to look and feel more
like desktop software applications,
offering more features
and running more
quickly. Although the techniques
behind Ajax are not
new, it is beginning to gain
recognition in the Web development
area, and will be
a hot skill on Web developers’
résumés in the next year.
Development skills in Microsoft’s .Net
Web services platform are also in high demand.
According to the Robert Half report,
many CIOs in Toronto and Calgary
are adopting the .Net platform as part of a
strategy to replace outdated technologies.
This is also fuelling demand for C# and Visual
Basic.Net programmers.
Replacing outdated systems is a particularly
strong trend in the health-care sector,
according to Jeff Whitehead, president
at Vancouver-based recruitment firm
Andersen Ryce. “Health care was the poor
cousin for a while,” he says.
Underfunding led to a lack of systems
development, he says, adding that political
changes have led to more health care
funding recently. “It takes time for that
money to filter in, but now several of the
larger health-care authorities are going
paperless.”
The health-care sector is looking
for people with technical
skills, who also have an understanding
of the sector. “That market
has been sucked dry,” Mr.
Whitehead says. “So they are getting
people with the technical skill
but none of the understanding of
the business of medicine.”
Ms. Lavoy sees the same demand
for health-care savvy technology
professionals in Eastern
Canada.
The need for employees who
straddle business and technnology
has always existed, arguably
since the 1960s, but today it has
never been stronger. Companies
now are demanding more accountability
fromIT departments.
Consequently, analysts who
can translate between business
and IT departments will be in
high demand, says Robert Half ’s
Ms. Levoy. Business systems analysts
working in database administration
will see their salaries
jump 6.5% this year to a maximumof
$80,250, according to the
Robert Half report, with the same
role in applications development
rising 5.3% to a ceiling of $84,250.
“In a lot of organizations, the
purses are not as loose as they
once were and there is more sign
off before they spend the money,”
says Apex Search’s Ms. Agulnik,
adding companies are looking for
technical staff with more rounded
skills. At one time, companies
might employ a business analyst
and a programmer separately, she
recalls. “Now, they might want
someone that can develop software
and be client-facing.”
There will not be a return to
the frenzied spending of the dotcom
boom, but that makes IT recruitment
and planning more
manageable. If the late ’90s and
early 2000s were the teenage
years of the commercial IT sector,
with its fast growth and
volatile mood swings, the late
2000s are its adult years. |
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