IT recruitment is looking better than at any time in the last two years, with two thirds of companies looking to recruit more staff in the next three months.

The figures were gleaned by Reed Recruitment, which surveyed almost 1,500 organisations across the UK. Overall, 94 per cent of organisations expect to recruit IT staff in the third quarter.

Redundancies are also at a two-year low - just six per cent of companies plan to downsize staff numbers in the next quarter. The least optimistic sector in the UK is the public sector, where only 27 per cent expect to recruit. Growth in London and the south-east still lags behind that in the Midlands, North and East Anglia.

Richard Frodin, Director of Reed Technology, said: "This substantial increase in recruitment demand in the IT sector, following the flat period of the last two years, marks a real step change in the jobs marketplace."

In an outbreak of possible wishful thinking, he added: "Although IT employers are not yet feeling the full impact of skills shortages or even sustained upwards pressure on salaries, both will become key issues if current trends continue."

Reed surveyed the 1,442 organisations in June 2004. 46 per cent were small organisations of up to 100 staff, 35 per cent medium-sized companies with between 101 and 1000 employees and 15 per cent were large organisations with over 1000 staff. ®

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