Hiring Trends in IT for Autumn 2024 – Quarterly Update

What hiring trends can we see from here?

General Hiring Trends in Tech:

Welcome to our end-of-Q2 update and a review of hiring trends in Christchurch and Auckland for the start of 2024 (what happened at the end of 2023?). We hope you’re keeping well and warm with Autumn suddenly upon us. Easter seems to have been a popular opportunity to take final local road trips before the winter sets in, so we hope you’ve had the opportunity to make the most of the last warm days! We’ll aim here to give you a good broad update on Tech recruitment as a whole, covering contract and permanent, graduates right up to Executive. As always, we love your feedback, so if there is anything you’d love to see covered in this commentary that we’re missing, please get in touch!

Skip to: * Hot Jobs * What’s happening at Sourced * Skills in demand right now * Overview *

Image: USAF F16 – Jason spent a day behind a camera over Easter – Wanaka 2024

The usual story: Another quarter rockets by as we hurry up and wait for something to happen within both the financial and employment space. For some, it has been a very difficult start to the year with continued talk of restructures and continued noise from central government about optimising the consulting workforce around Wellington. Anecdotally we hear that the UK and AU job space is having a similar experience and activity is historically low (but not the lowest i.e. post GFC and Lockdowns)

General Comments

With the perfect storm of inflation, economic contraction and fewer permanent positions coming to market, the contrast with a bumper 2022 is stark. With ’22 being the great permanent recruitment round-a-bout, we now see a very high level of staff retention, and fewer opportunities coming to market for those seeking. This is backed up with many a report that applicant per job (listing) is at a record high – very low job volume versus a mix of high migration + those that missed the 2022 bus.

On the contracting side of the fence, numbers of new roles coming to market have dropped marginally, with clients demanding much more specific sets of skills, and being quite prepared to wait to find the right fit.While we talk about new-to-market contract roles only dropping off slightly, we have seen a record number of contractors coming into the market, finishing up projects through 2023 and struggling to re-enter the market, or clients in smaller numbers downsizing their consulting teams. As is always the case, demand for contractors and permanent staff, particularly in project environments, is very cyclical, and there seems to be a hiring trend inward at the moment with clients downsizing their contractor teams and looking to disperse work within existing permanent teams or occasionally replace them with fixed-term options.

Speaking of Contractors:

When looking at our contractors currently available and the market as a whole, it is our BA’s who have largely become available or have not managed to find redeployment in 2024. This is interesting as this has always been the busiest place for contractors, particularly in the Canterbury market, with Auckland showing a bit more diversity. We are finding that as BA roles present (contract), there is no real need to market these as resource availability is so high. Conversely in the Programme and Project space, candidates are much harder to find, particularly where domain speciality is required.

Our candidate pool has shown quite a shift over this last quarter, with a growing number looking to relocate to Canterbury from the North Island. For the first time as a business, we are seeing many relocating from Wellington, or looking for FIFO opportunities. Factors for people relocating; the cost of living, housing and more stable work opportunities are the driving factors, Christchurch now presents as a great ‘livable city’ option for mid-career professionals with young families. For those a little further along in their careers, the ability and motivation to work remotely/hybrid is becoming much more appealing, and they are eyeing Canterbury and Auckland as a way to expand on their opportunities as the central government market contracts.

Is Auckland any Different?

From an Auckland point of view, hiring trends are very much of the same above, and this applies to all industries we monitor. Contractors are either hunkering down, as they are rolled over for further terms (tending to be at least 6 months), or coming out into a market that is much tougher to re-enter. We have observed a small number of larger, enterprise clients shedding contracting teams in significant volume, and this has certainly caused a degree of unsettledness in the market. As with Canterbury, this does mean there are a range of options available for those looking to grow their contracting teams.

On the permanent side, recruitment does remain quieter but stable in the Auckland market, however, there seems to be a much bigger focus on in-house recruitment, recruitment through referral and recommendation, and relying on networks to bolster teams. We are seeing very little ‘active’ movement between the Christchurch and Auckland markets, which we had certainly seen in late 2023 with a flow of candidates moving South. Where candidates are moving it is tending to be for specific roles or to settle new to New Zealand families in work, as opposed to moving for lifestyle reasons.

From an external candidate point of view, net migration into Canterbury and Auckland seems to have dropped considerably when compared to late 2023, and candidates are tending to be on the ground here, be it in the region, or looking to relocate,

Where are we busy?

When we consider our busiest areas currently, permanent and contracting roles sit relatively even, however, with a slight lean towards contract roles. No one role type is experiencing higher demand than others, and most are tending to fall at the mid-career level. We are seeing almost no managerial, or executive roles in the market with a significant amount of this recruitment happening in 2023 and graduate/junior recruitment remains in limited pockets.

Hot Jobs

Junior Level

Concentrate looking for their next Business Development Representative! Ever dreamt of a career in technology sales? Want to work in an established team learning the ropes in driving inbound sales opportunities? This is a junior-level role focussed on prospecting, generation and qualification of leads, seeing them through a sales lifecycle. Grow and learn in a fantastic, supportive team culture. $55k + commission

Intermediate Level

The House of Travel are looking for a smart, motivated, team player to join their BI Reporting team. With a strong focus on Microsoft BI technologies (PowerBI/SSIS) you’ll be working alongside business stakeholders building out a range of dashboards, reports and business insights. This is a great opportunity for a mid level BI Specialist looking for an amazing, support team culture. $90k

Senior Level

M365/Knowledge Management Specialist. We have two opportunities currently for M365 Application Specialists ideally with strong skills in the 365 App suite including Sharepoint (administration, management). Ideally you’ll come from a Digital Specialist background and be interested in the opportunity to drive the unlock and uptake of 365 functionality within an enterprise setting. These roles mix Support, BA, and hands on technical and are positioned at the mid and senior level with salary up to $100k

Who is in Demand?

As covered above, this quarter has favoured contractors, however not in market that would be described as bouyant. Project Delivery skills are still the most sought after, with an emergence of Fixed Term contract roles, where clients are preferring to fix term longer-term engagements to cover large programmes/implementations.

Development and Test have been very quiet over the past quarter, with Infrastructure roles being more in favour, both at Architecture/Lead level and mid level Engineering. These have been a mix of On-Prem and 365/Cloud and predominantly inhouse vs MSP. Cloud Engineers and Architects have continued to be in demand, from a Digital/Cloud perspective and we expect to see more of this as the economy bounces back and cloud transformation initiatives are reinvigorated..

Salaries are tending to hold on the ‘new norms’ of 2023 with very little downward trending. We are not seeing any movement up, just a holding of the current status. There has been much chatter about whether we would see salary levels dropping back down to 2022 levels, but we certainly haven’t seen this. We are also seeing the same with contracting rates, with only a very slight softening of rates, or contractors that have been paid over market in the past, having to settle for standard market rates.

Hiring Trends General Round-Up

Short and sweet this time:

• While the market currently favours the client, quantity of candidates available does not necessarily equate to quality.
• Contractors are easier to secure in the Analysis space, however harder in wider project delivery.
• Salaries are holding firm, and migration into Christchurch is coming moreso from the regions than offshore.
• Permanent roles are tending to sit mid- level, with little demand at the Management/Executive level.

We all watch with interest as we enter the new financial year to see what comes next.

Can’t wait to update you on this at the end of Q2!