Merry Christmas....and my predictions for the New Year!

Wow.....where has 2015 gone?  I don't know about you but the years seem to be rolling by faster and faster.   2015 in particular seems to have gone by in a flash!

2015 has been a strong year for the Spark team so I wanted to write and thank all of those who have contributed to this along the way.   Your support has been amazing and it is very much appreciated.

So 2016 will shortly be upon us.  Here are some of my predictions for the New Year:

• The IT Sector will remain buoyant.   2015 was a strong year in terms of demand for IT professionals and we expect this to continue on into 2016
• Contracting will remain strong. 
• Innovation, especially Technology based innovation is at the forefront of the Turnbull administration.  This will lead to increased opportunities for Technology professionals in 2016 as disrupters and innovators have more opportunity.
• "The Atlassian Effect"  - the recent high profile success of Atlassian's float and the flow through that this will have with Investors will lead to more investment in Technology companies in Australia.
• More choices faster - we expect high value job seekers will have more choices and that the recruitment process will be short and sharp as clients realise they need to win the battle for talent
• The "in-demand" skills will continue to evolve - as we have seen in 2015 there have been structural shifts in the skills that employers are looking to acquire.  Whether this is a DevOps engineer, a Data Scientist or someone with the latest JS framework we expect that there will be further changes in what employers are looking for
• Increased engagement with Recruiters - we have already seen this to some extent in the second half of 2015 but we expect that companies will need more support from recruiters in 2016 for in demand skills groups within the IT sector. 

We would love to know your predictions for the IT employment market for 2016 so please get in touch!

Merry Christmas and all the best for 2016!