The recruitment market for business analysts and online specialists is becoming frantic for many companies, who are experiencing a shortage of adequately qualified workers, according to new figures from KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC). The figures, which were compiled by business information company, Markit, showed that IT staff have been in increasing demand since June 2010, in both permanent and contract roles. Demand for their skills was second only to construction and engineering workers. KPMG’s head of business services, Bernard Brown, said that despite an overall slowing in permanent placements across the job market as a whole, recruitment of online specialists remained highly competitive. “Of the eight broad types of permanent staff monitored by the survey, six registered higher levels of demand in June [2011],” he said. “The strongest rate of expansion was signalled for engineering and construction workers, followed by IT and computing employees.” Matt Gascoigne, from IT staffing specialists Badenoch & Clark, said that the constant evolution and development of business technology systems was propping up the staffing market. “There is increased demand, especially in larger organisations with more than 2,000 users, for new functionality on the latest Microsoft releases, including Windows 7 and Office 2010,” he said, adding that financial services companies are frantically looking for people with good desktop support experience.