IT consultants’ wages leapt by 17 percent during 2006, helped by a boom in mergers and acquisitions, and public sector outsourcing projects, according to a new report from the Association of Technology Staffing Companies (Atsco)

The annual average take-home pay for an IT consultant last year was £48,383, compared to £41,500 in 2005.

Atsco said the increase was partly due to the rise in M&A activity, which saw £339bn spent on UK firms during 2006. As a result, there was an increase in the number of external consultants required to help manage the post-merger integration of IT systems.

Public sector spending on IT consultants also increased by a third last year to £2.8bn, as it looked to outsource more IT development and cut back internal staff, according to Atsco.

Ann Swain, Atsco’s chief executive, said consultancies had embarked on “aggressive” recruitment drives to cope with the requirements, but a shortage of skills had led to a bidding war and higher wages being offered.

In related news, IT training and recruitment specialist FDM has announced the appointment of a soft skills coach to help improve the inter-personal skills of IT consultants and contractors.

FDM said the appointment of Bill Moir was in response to industry demand for IT professionals with technical and business skills. It also highlighted the results of a recent FDM survey, which revealed 68 percent of HR managers felt that IT workers lacked soft skills.

Moir, a staff development management consultant who has worked with large organisations such as Nike, Microsoft and the BBC, said his new position involved helping participants in the FDM training programme to examine and develop their inter-personal skills.

“The first stage will look at body language and creating a rapport. In the long-term, we’ll take a modular approach covering presentation, communication, conflict handling and writing CVs,” Moir explained.

Moir added that the impetus for his appointment came solely from industry demand. “The feedback from clients was that IT specialists don’t have a raised level of inter-personal skills. They can do Java, .Net or financial analysis, but they needed to do better at interviews,” he said. “30 percent of the recruitment decision-making process is based on how a person will fit in at the hiring company.”