In 2012, demand for highly-educated ICT professionals grew by +5% from the previous year due to midsized companies with 200 to 500 employees seeing a greater need in hiring these skilled workers.

This is according to new research by Randstad-owned staffing company Yacht, which showed that companies reported an overall strong demand for ICT professionals with knowledge of software development.

However, the number of ICT jobs fell in large companies last year with workers moving into small to medium-sized firms. A lack of challenges in larger corporations may explain why ICT professionals were increasingly moving to SMEs.

In 2012, software engineers were most in demand, followed by project managers and service managers while demand for SAP consultants dropped.

Other research by Yacht showed that the Dutch financial services industry improved towards the end of last year. This is despite demand falling by -9% for finance professionals during 2012. In the fourth quarter of 2012, Yacht found that the financial job market stabilised as demand for management positions in the sector grew by +7%. Professionals could therefore be “cautiously optimistic” for 2013.