That's the view of Gregor Bell, manager for permanent IT staff at recruitment firm Robert Walters.

"We went from a situation 18 months ago when there was a shift to permanent project managers in-house, to the downturn, where that whole project management world shut up shop," Bell says.

The situation hasn't changed until the past few weeks, he says.

"It's starting to pick up again, but in the contract space, not the permanent one.

"I haven't had a genuine in-house project manager position to fill since January."