BCS Edinburgh Branch

The state of the Scottish job market

Wednesday 9th September 2009, 6:30 pm.

Speakers: Stuart Nicol and Luke Westendarp, Computer Futures.

University of Edinburgh Informatics Forum, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB - map (click on Informatics Forum in the list of buildings).

This talk is free of charge. Refreshments available from 6:00 pm.

Synopsis

It would be fair to say the employment market in the UK has had a turbulent 12 months and faces a difficult future in the time ahead.

Stuart Nicol and Luke Westendarp from Computer Futures, one of the largest IT recruitment organisations in Europe, will talk through the current state of the IT Jobs market in Scotland, and the best ways of navigating it successfully.

• How the recession has affected the recruitment and supply of IT staff in Scotland (SW).
• How the jobs market is expected to fair going forward (GK).
• The skills, technologies and methodologies that are most in demand right now (SW).
• The perceived relevance of recognised training and qualifications (GK).
• How to successfully navigate the jobs market and recruitment process (SW).

The presentation will be followed by a Q&A.

About the speakers

Stuart Nicol Graduated from Napier University in 2004. He joined Computer Futures in 2005 where he has focused on the Scottish Infrastructure market recruiting contract engineers varying from 1st line support engineers through to Senior infrastructure mangers.

Luke Westendarp graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2004 and shortly afterwards joined Computer Futures. Initially he focussed on the recruitment of Software Development contractors for the Edinburgh Area and now is Senior Consultant in charge of contract recruitment for Web and Applications Development as well as ERP, Business Intelligence, Databases and Legacy systems.