Parity, believe that businesses may have to increase their contractor pay rates, or look at the option of employing professional staff on an assignment basis, through a third party, such as Parity. This type of assignment recruitment can provide the employer with additional flexibility as it is the third party which employs the professional on a permanent basis – giving the client the opportunity to switch on or off the resource as and when required.

With so many projects for such a small pool of contractors to pick and choose from, Parity believes that businesses will have to offer considerably higher rates in order to attract the best candidates. What’s more, without adequate forward planning, the shortage of skilled project and programme managers, as well as development staff in the IT sector, is set to cause serious delays in project implementation – fuelling costs even further.