A comprehensive study by the IT Recruitment specialist has found that permanent IT salaries in the UK have risen by 5% over the last 12 months, with the average salary for an IT professional now 38,946. The detailed survey of the IT Jobs market looked at a broad spectrum of 50 IT roles and monitored over 7,000 advertised positions in the UK during the first quarter of 2011 and compared the figures with the same period in the previous year. The rise in IT salaries can partly be attributed to the recovery of the economy and jobs market over the past 12 months. Employers are gaining confidence their recruitment and salary budgets have increased over the last year. Rather than cutting back on staff, we are now seeing employers looking to grow the size of their workforce and are having to offer more competitive salaries to secure the best talent. CV Screen observed that their number of registered vacancies had increased dramatically (by over 25%) between Quarter 1 2010 and Quarter 1 2011. Iveson commented This increase is very encouraging and is a further reflection of the continued improvement of the UK IT jobs market. However, it must also be noted that that number of applications per role has actually dropped by around 20%.The employer driven market of a year ago is now shifting towards a candidate driven market, which is driving salaries up.” Iveson continued Within certain areas of the IT Jobs market we are seeing a lack of good quality candidates, particularly within .NET, PHP and Java development sectors. In order to attract the best calibre candidates, employers have been forced to offer higher salaries when competing for talent in these areas.Iveson concluded Whilst it is difficult to make predictions for the next 12 months, we strongly believe that rising inflation and the increased cost of living will push IT wages up further and therefore the salary increase trend will continue well into 2012. Credit: onrec.com