Find IT Wellington continues to see the tech labour market in Wellington remain buoyant especially for very technical roles with great candidates still finding themselves with multiple job offers. Tech areas we continue to see growth and demand in are software development, data, cyber security and cloud. The demand in Wellington continues across both the Public and Private sectors.

We have started to see more candidates from overseas trickling into Wellington on the new Immigration NZ Visas, we see this as a positive as our tech market has been very tight for a long time. We have had some great successes placing strong overseas candidates into perm roles so far in 2023. Many of our Clients are accredited employers making the process to hire from offshore easier than ever.

Significant numbers of young tech professionals start to head overseas on their long awaited and Covid delayed OE’s. These people are leaving substantial skill gaps for many of our clients. The talent shortage we already have in the tech sector will remain a challenge in our tech marketplace into the foreseeable future, and our ability to work closely with our Clients to help them identify not just the best talent but also the most available talent in the marketplace cannot be underestimated.

On the Contract front we have seen a cooling of the market overall, which we had flagged in our Q1 newsletter due to changes in the financial markets and the looming election in October 2023. There appears to be a solid pipeline of activity moving into Q2 and Q3 in Wellington but we feel a lot of this work taking flight will be dependent on the outcome of the General Election. That said we are tracking very strong contractor talent pools to ensure when our Clients request contractor resource we are ready to go!

Over the last 10 years when we see pressures on organisations to reduce costs we see a trend to try and use Fixed Term contractors as an alternative to using a Contractor and that is happening again now. The issue with Fixed Term is that it typically sits in what we call “no-mans-land”. Candidates will predominantly choose a Permanent role over a Fixed Term position, which makes sense. Traditionally in recruitment pre-2012 Fixed Term contracts had a higher salary weighting applied to them that often sat between 10% and 20%. This was used to address the fact the Fixed Term nature is associated with a higher risk, unfortunately we have seen this rule fall away and we think if our Clients started to adopt this approach again it would make Fixed Term far more attractive to potential candidates.

In summary Find IT Wellington remains upbeat and positive about the continued demand for I.T specialists, the shortage of people continues to drive demand for the most skilled and experienced employees and in turn continues to put pressure on higher salary and wage growth.

Our highly experienced team of tech recruiters are here to support you through your hiring requirements and we are acutely aware that trying to hire in what remains a fiercely competitive market is full of twists and turns that we can help you navigate through. Please don’t hesitate to call us on 021 475 258 to discuss your requirements, we are only a phone call away!