There has been a mixed response to a survey of IT professionals which expected skills gaps in the sector to widen.

Recruiters were commenting on the IT Job Board survey, which says 72% of respondents expect the shortfall to increase.

Fahim Rashid, senior contractors consultant at IT recruiter Circle Recruitment, told Recruiter it can be difficult to source the right mixture of skills. “It depends on the nature of the role. There are certain roles with a mixture of skills which are difficult to get, you might be able to find .NET developers, but it may be harder to find a combination of PHP and .NET.”

However, Peter Breeze, director of IT recruiter Blue Pelican Group, told Recruiter he has not noticed a skills gap in the sectors it recruits into, which include analytics, marketing and pharmaceutical.

“We use headhunting and networking to source candidates. It may depend on the model you have. If you concentrate on niche markets, like we do, it is less of a problem,” adding he was expecting at least 200 vacanies to be released to the company in January.