A recent Chartered Institute of Personal Development (CIPD) survey of 2000 employees across all departments found over half cited pay as the top reason for wanting to change jobs and this resonates well with the experiences of some IT department heads at the moment.

The report from the CIPD, the industry body that represents HR professionals, suggests that the economic downturn is increasingly eroding employees' standards of living. Extended pay freezes and job insecurity are causing more people to look for new jobs in the hope of increasing their pay packet.

One IT leader who wished not to be named said: "I don't think the [CIPD's] results come as a great surprise. This is especially the case when viewed from a public sector perspective where salaries have been frozen and the possibility of redundancy looms larger than at any point in the recent past. As a result, those with marketable skills are probably looking outside of their organisations, most likely to the private sector, in search of better paid opportunities."

He went on to say that, within the public sector especially, IT cuts have meant that the IT role has been reduced to a keeping-the-lights-on function with very little opportunity for job satisfaction.

He said: "With consumer price inflation running at 4.2% compared with a 0% pay increase the chance to recoup some of the purchasing power that has been lost by changing jobs is quite attractive. If you are on a recruitment drive, the biggest lure is increasingly a generous pay package, rather than what the company can offer in terms of job satisfaction."