A CTO rang me on Monday asking whether he should wait another month before opening a head of platform engineering search.
He'd been sitting on the brief since June. Board approval was there and so was the budget. Still he hesitated, the way most of UK tech hiring has hesitated for the best part of two years.
Wait for the next data point.
Or wait for someone else to go first. It rarely cost you much, because for a long stretch nobody else was moving either. August changed that, and most hiring managers haven't noticed yet.
What actually happened to UK hiring in August?
The KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs, published this month, recorded the Permanent Placements Index at 50.5.
It's the first reading above the neutral 50 mark since September 2022. Temporary billings moved faster still, up to 52.4 nationally. The North of England posted 58.9 on that same measure, its strongest rate in over four years according to the report.
And starting salaries rose at their sharpest pace since January, the same data showed.
Four years is a long stretch for a market to sit still. This one didn't creep back to life evenly either. IT and computing was named specifically among the sectors driving temporary demand, alongside blue collar roles, according to specialist IT recruiter Langley James's own read of the same August figures. Permanent recovery ran broader and slower across the wider economy.
Contract moved first, weeks before permanent even stirred.
Why is contract IT hiring moving faster than permanent?
Because a business that's not ready to commit to a permanent head of platform engineering will usually still take an interim one. That gap between confidence and commitment is exactly where contract sits. Employers get the capability without the twelve month leap of faith.
Candidates get paid properly for scarce skills while everyone else works out whether the recovery holds.
The scarce skills are the same ones I've been fielding calls about since spring. AI and machine learning engineers. Cyber security specialists. Cloud transformation leads, data engineers, and full stack developers who can actually ship rather than just talk about shipping.
None of those pools were deep to start with.
And eighteen months of employers sitting on their hands did nothing to widen them. Langley James put a figure on the squeeze too, reporting that contractor day rates for AI adjacent roles are now catching up to permanent salary rises almost point for point. It tells you exactly where the pressure sits, whatever the headline placements number says on its own.
Here's the bit that catches finance directors out most often.
A day rate that looked steep back in March can work out cheaper than the counter offer you'll end up matching in October. That's once three other businesses have started calling the same shortlist you were quietly sitting on. Nobody budgets for that scramble in advance.
So does that mean permanent hiring should wait?
Not necessarily.
And it's exactly where I'd push back on my own CTO from Monday. Waiting for permanent demand to look as strong as contract demand before moving means waiting for a queue that's already forming. Businesses treating this month's numbers as background noise are going to run the same process in October against a shortlist three competitors have already called first.
I've watched this play out before, on a smaller scale, after earlier slow patches.
Everyone waits for certainty. Then everyone moves in the same six weeks, chasing the same six names. Whoever briefed a recruiter first gets the actual conversation rather than a forwarded CV three weeks later. Waiting has a cost, even if it never sends you an invoice for it.
Treating this as a straight contract vs permanent IT hire decision, pick one lane and stick to it, is exactly the trap worth avoiding this month.
Run both tracks at once instead. Brief the permanent search now, while good candidates are still answering calls rather than fielding six of them a week. But if timing or budget sign off slips, bridge the gap with an interim hire from the same specialist pool rather than losing the momentum entirely.
It isn't a generic piece of recruiter advice either.
It's the specific shape of what a desk working both contract and permanent IT roles, in the same specialisms, week in and week out, can offer that a database subscription simply can't. We placed two cloud architects on interim contracts last month for clients who weren't ready to commit to permanent heads yet. Both conversations are already moving toward permanent offers, months earlier than either client expected.
The interim hire gave each of them a working relationship to test before signing anything long term.
What should you actually do this month?
Brief us on the role. Even the ones sitting untouched since June, gathering dust in a shared drive somewhere. Or a start date still eight weeks out, because that conversation is worth having now rather than in October.
A specialist desk that moves between contract and permanent within the same technical specialisms sees the whole shortlist, not half of it split across two separate searches run by two different agencies.
Filling a vacancy and watching a good candidate go elsewhere while you were still deciding which route to take, that's the gap this closes. If you've got a senior IT role sitting unfilled, whether that's a permanent head of platform engineering or bridging cover while sign off catches up, this is the month worth moving in, not the one after it.
Before you brief anyone, though, check what a properly specialist IT recruitment agency should actually be able to tell you about your own market before you pay their fee. Most can't. Ours can, because it's the only market we work. That's the whole pitch, really.
Sitting on a senior IT vacancy, contract or permanent? Send us the brief and we'll tell you honestly whether now's the moment to move. And if you're the one weighing up a change rather than making a hire, our latest IT roles are worth a look too.
