New funding is to be spent on reducing skills shortages in the Scottish jobs market, which could benefit IT contractors.

The government has announced that £34 million of European funding will go towards boosting the workforce and is hoped to help 30,000 people into work in the country.

Lisa Boutineau, regional director for the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), highlighted the role of recruiters in finding contractors with the necessary skills.

She said that there are certain areas where there are still acute skills shortages and these are in areas such as technology and engineering.

Ms Boutineau said: "Recruiters are very much at the forefront in giving guidance to those people who are looking to get back into the jobs market through showing them where the current opportunities are which have been created by these shortages."

IDC recently showed that business analytics software-as-a-service is set to expand by a compound annual growth rate of 22.4 per cent for the next five years, which could create new opportunities for those with umbrella companies.