Tech job postings have risen 26.3 percent in the last year, according to a monthly report released by Dice.com, a technology jobs and skills board.
The survey also found that while demand for all technology positions continues to grow, demand for contract positions outpace that for permanent positions, 30.3 to 22.9 percent.
Technology professionals in contract positions make on average $18,000 more per year than their counterparts in full-time positions, or $82,700 versus $64,300. Average technology salaries on the whole are $67,900.
“This is something that’s been fairly consistent,” Scot Melland president and CEO of Dice.com told eWEEK.
“There are a couple of reasons. First, contractors get paid more but they don’t get all the benefits. The second reason is that contract positions are often for new and hard to find skills.”
Dice’s topic poll found that 33 percent of technology professionals see Web development as the tech field offering the most potential for those just starting out, followed by databases (23 percent), security (20 percent) and Windows (15 percent).
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Only 9 percent felt that Linux is the place to be.
“If you look at where the jobs are today, they are really in core technology areas such as programming,” Melland said.
“A lot of that is Web development, and working on the applications that drive Web sites, such as Java, .Net framework, HTML, XML. It’s a very broad term, but development, project management, database administration, programming and specifically Web development are where it is at,” he said.
The report also ranked the top tech metropolitan areas based on the number of jobs posted in each. New York and New Jersey took the top slot, with 10,809, following by Washington D.C. (8,686), Silicon Valley (8,194), and Los Angeles (5,422), along with their surrounding areas.
“What is interesting is that the secondary markets have really taken off. Postings from Philadelphia, Boston, Dallas and Atlanta have grown more than 50 percent in the last year,” Melland explained.
Read the full story on eWEEK.com: Contractors Prosper as Tech Job Market Thrives