Demand for IT Director roles increases by 50% i one month

A job report released this week highlights a near 50 percent increase in permanent vacancies for IT Directors in July, when compared to the previous month, indicating that businesses may be seeking talent to help re-evaluate strategy and performance.

IT Directors also saw a 78.7 percent increase in permanent vacancies since June last year, according to specialist IT recruitment consultancy Computer People.

Business Intelligence and Project Management roles also saw double digit growth since last year, which again suggests a renewed focus on strategy.

Computer People found the permanent jobs available across the whole IT sector are up by 8.09 percent and contract work is up 3.47 percent from this time last year. London and the South East continue to dominate with 53 percent overall growth, where London alone is responsible for a quarter of all vacancies in the UK at present.

"The forecast is looking extremely positive. All the signs are that there will be both month-on-month and year-on-year growth as we move forward, despite moving into the historically challenging summer holiday period," said Niall Cook, Managing Director of Computer People.

Within the contract market the largest rise in vacancies between June and July was for ERP at 13.7 percent, followed by 11.6 percent for Technical architects and 5.6 percent for web development.

Wipro sees growing demand from outsourcing clients

Indian outsourcer Wipro grew revenue and profits in the second quarter, citing improved demand.

At the end of last quarter, Wipro spun out its non-IT businesses such as consumer care and lighting into a separate company, and is now more closely focused on its IT business.

On Friday it reported that its revenue was up by 5 percent year-on-year to about 97 billion rupees (US$1.63 billion) in the quarter, while profits increased 11 percent from the same quarter last year to 16 billion rupees. The results are in accordance with IFRS (international financial reporting standards).

The company has said that its IT services revenue from outsourcing in the next quarter will be up to $1.65 billion. IT services revenue was close to $1.6 billion in the second quarter.

Other Indian outsourcers like Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys have also indicated an improvement in the outsourcing business, particularly in key markets like the U.S.

TCS, India's largest outsourcer, said last week that its deal pipeline was strong both in the U.S. and Europe. It reported that revenue in the second quarter rose 16 percent year-on-year to over $3 billion, while net income increased by 10.6 percent to $668 million.

While deal closures in the last quarter were lower than expected, 886 deals valued at about $21 billion are coming up for renewal this year in the outsourcing business as a whole, said Siddharth Pai, president of Asia-Pacific for Information Services Group, which analyzes the market. The outlook looks positive for the remainder of this year as a result, he added.

Wipro's IT services business had 147,281 employees as of June 30, an increase of 1,469 people in the quarter, and added 28 new customers. A smaller IT products business had revenue of about 8 billion rupees, a year-on-year decrease of 14 percent. A salary hike for employees, which came into effect in June, affected operating margins in the quarter, the company said.

Tech giants demand spying openness

 

 NSA boss Gen Keith Alexander said sharing more data about requests must not harm investigations Apple, Google and dozens of other technology companies have urged US authorities to let them divulge more details about security requests.

 
The companies want to be able to report regular statistics about the nature and scope of what data is being asked for.

Whistle-blower Edward Snowden's revelations about US spying capabilities has left the tech firms keen to assert their independence.

Authorities are said to be considering the companies' request.

"We just want to make sure we do it right," said Gen Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency.

"We don't impact anything ongoing with the FBI. I think that's the reasonable approach."
Limited scope

  The companies sent a letter outlining their request on Thursday to Gen Alexander, as well as President Obama and Congress.

It was co-signed by some of the most influential companies in the tech world, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Campaign groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Human Rights Watch are also backing the action.

Companies are currently allowed to release limited data regarding security requests and their nature.
But as it stands those disclosures must be limited in scope, and in many cases require that the firms ask the courts for permission to make the information public.

Many users of popular services, particularly social networks, reacted angrily to the news that companies regularly make available information about users when requested to do so.

"They don't have a choice. Court order, they have to do this," Mr Alexander from the NSA said, suggesting that security authorities could be open to the idea.

"What they want is the rest of the world to know that we're not reading all of that email, so they want to give out the numbers.

"I think there's some logic in doing that."