IT professionals' salaries have soared 18 percent in the past year to an average median salary of £34,500, according to a new survey seen by IT Week.

The survey of 5,000 IT professionals by the Association of Technology Staffing Companies (ATSCo) and recruitment firm TheSkillsMarket was undertaken during the second quarter of the year and also found that contractor rates have climbed six percent on the previous quarter to £37 per hour.

Writing in the report, Ann Swain, chief executive of ATSCo, said, " Recruiters are finding it increasingly hard to find good candidates and are therefore needing to become more innovative when it comes to locating them. As a result candidates are benefiting from being able to be more selective about the roles they take."

She added that project managers, team leaders, test managers, infrastructure architects and service delivery managers were in particularly high demand and saw their salaries climb by around 15 percent during the year.

IT directors, however, enjoyed less salary inflation, their average median income climbing just four percent to £71,000.

The survey also confirmed that the energy, consumer goods and finance sectors continue to offer the best IT salaries, while the public sector is still lagging behind its private sector counterparts in terms of IT pay.

In terms of technical skills the highest paid respondents typically worked on IBM MQSeries, Corba OSI and Baan, while the lowest paid were focused on Microsoft Office, XHTML and Illustrator. The survey follows a recent study by consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) that warned that many firms were facing an IT talent crisis, particularly when it came to filling leadership positions.

The report, which was based on interviews with over 150 European executives, said that many firms were finding it difficult to recruit managers with the mathematical, scientific and engineering skills required to deliver innovative IT projects.

The report also found that staff are increasingly motivated by career development issues rather than stock options and other financial incentives and as a result firms need to invest in innovative HR strategies to retain strong employees.