UK Contractors coming to India
By Techgirl

Every year, tens of thousands of skilled Programmers, Analysts, Team Leaders and hardware engineers would leave their country and make their way to where the jobs and money were.  Quite often, these skilled techies would under cut the more expensive locals and take away their jobs.  They stuck close to each other at work and sometimes even lived in the same housing complex.

This is the story of many of the Indian techies who went on H1B Working Visas to United States or the ten thousand plus every year that used such Visas or Intra Company transfer to work in United Kingdom.  Not surprisingly, many of the Americans and Britishers were unhappy at losing their jobs or being reduced to a minority at their workplaces in their own countries.  There were murmurs of unhappiness on how the Indians always stuck together when dealing with foreign colleagues.

Now the wheel is coming full circle.  Many highly skilled British techies want to come and work in India.  Contractor UK, which is the No. 1 Resource for UK IT Contractors and whose website gets 250 thousand unique visitors a month,  had just rated India as an IT contractor hotspot and given it a rating of 3/5

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IT contractor hotspot: INDIA
Hotness Rating: 3/5

Although the world's classic destination for outsourcing is no longer as cheap as it used to be, India is a "definite hotspot right now for almost all IT skillsets", says Jenrick IT.

Managing director Philip Fanthom says his agents are fielding a growing number of requests for UK-based project contractors, willing to relocate to the country's technology hubs.

Demand in India for freelance computer skills is currently most visible from telecommunications firms, with some focus on IT contractors who have a strong background in Oracle BRM, and would accept long-term roles.

For these IT contracts, Indian client companies are prioritising the more autonomous freelancers, such as those contractors experienced at executing sub-projects based on the initial input of the architect and/or project manager.

The UK-based IT recruiter Arrows Group confirmed that India was no longer exclusively interested in IT candidates on the lower rungs of the jobs ladder, by saying demand for "highly skilled" technologists from the UK could increase in the coming months.
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Is this karma for Indian techies on H1B Visas undercutting American computing personnel?  Currently, Mohan, a highly skilled SAP specialist in Bangalore, is being paid between Rs. 12 - 15 lakh a year.  Will Mark from United Kingdom under cut him by asking for only Rs. 10 Lakh a year?

Techgoss note:  Techgirl is a senior Tech journalist who reports on the IT, KPO and KPO Sectors for a leading media house.  In her spare time, she dabbles in satire in her blog http://techgirltalk.blogspot.com