The last six months in the technology transformation market have seen an abundance of new and stalled programmes come to life. Where many clients were forced to pause their programmes in 2021 due to Covid-19, it seems like now the budget restrictions have been lifted and clients are ready to move forwards with their transformations. We have seen a large influx of technology separation and divestment programmes where the need to hire experienced and reliable consultants is greater than ever. The challenge this creates, is finding the right talent that is available and on budget. Contractors remain keen to be deployed outside IR35 and this at times does create challenges for clients looking to hire inside IR35 contract resource. SAP and the market’s adoption of S/4HANA seems particularly buoyant, with their CEO Christian Klein recently stating, “Our strategy is clearly working. Customers are choosing SAP for their business transformation in the cloud. We see record adoption of our applications and our platform. This has resulted in strong acceleration of our cloud growth.”
We have also seen a huge increase in demand for infrastructure and senior cloud resource. The biggest area of demand currently is in the end user computing and digital workspace area. Due to Covid and the need to have employees working remotely, the demand for Office 365, Windows 10, MS Teams migrations and movement to the cloud has seen a significant surge. Many clients are also doing discovery projects across their application landscape and deciding how and when to move from on-premise to cloud.
The cyber security market is increasingly busy, driven by regulatory change, major incidents, and fear of breach. Application security, cloud security and other niche skills are particularly short in the market. We are seeing increased demand for OT security experts with the increased connectivity of devices and OT environments. The Zero Trust model has also seen increased popularity throughout the pandemic and the move to remote working. Organisations conducting fair IR35 assessments and securing expertise on outcome-based engagements seem to be gaining a competitive edge in attracting the top talent in the market.
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