Don’t turn your back on IT Opportunities in Hong Kong

By Neil Holland

Despite mixed messages about IT opportunities in Hong Kong - the UK’s largest IT graduate employer - FDM has begun accelerating its recruitment drive in the region. The recent revelation that a number of investment banks are set to introduce major job cuts in Hong Kong in the coming years, came as unwelcome news to many, particulary those considering roles and job placements in the area. However, the employment prospects for IT professionals and graduates seeking Hong Kong based IT roles may not really be so bleak after all.

As the UK’s ‘Best Technical Graduate Recruiter’ of 2010, FDM is aiming to place 150 candidates in the region within the next year for a number of reasons. The Hong Kong Computer Society (HKCS) recently reported that more than 70% of the IT professionals questioned for its latest employment survey received an average pay increase of four to six percent in 2011. The results of the survey also revealed that 51.2% of the firms questioned hired fresh graduates this year, 90% of which received an entry level salary of over HK$10,000 a month.

These statistics reveal promising opportunities for IT professionals and graduates and FDM are currently meeting and exceeding these opportunities by providing its Hong Kong based graduate IT Consultants with a salary of around HK$27,000 (over £2,000) per month. We are doing this precisely because we view the region as a key area of growth. The City-State was hailed as one of the three cities to “drive the economy,” next to London and New York, by Time magazine in 2008 and has been seen to help lead the worldwide economic recovery.

Last month it was also reported that Investment Banks were actually increasing their IT spending at a faster rate in Asia-Pacific, as the region's economies grow in their importance on the global stage. Research by Ovum also revealed that Hong Kong and Singapore will see IT spending increase annually by 8.1% and 7.1% respectively.The growing economic influence of Asia-Pacific countries was also made glaringly obvious through this report which highlighted that global companies were shifting their decision making power away from London and New York, to this region.

It is for these reasons that we placed over 50 graduates in the region since October last year, having developed a substantial and impressive client base there. We look forward to offering many more graduates the opportunity to live and work in Asia in the coming years and have received an extremely positive response from our current Hong Kong Consultants. The bottom line is that the city is a thriving cosmopolitan centre for business, which currently appears to nurture the careers of IT professionals as well as the IT industry.

We would encourage other IT services providers and jobseekers not to be deterred by these latest job cuts. In the words of William Hague, Hong Kong is still “one of the world’s leading global financial centres, and host to 70 of the world’s 100 largest banks. Hong Kong is a shining example of Asian success and the IT opportunities this region has to offer”.

 

Neil Holland is currently employed as Regional Sales Manager for Asia Pacific at FDM. He joined FDM in 2000 and has worked as an Account Manager with clients such as  Royal Bank of Scotland, BMW and HSBC. In 2010 he helped set up FDM's Test Programme before moving on to assist in the inception of FDM's Asia Pacific operation.