I was looking at [URL="http://www.jobstats.co.uk"]www.jobstats.co.uk[/URL], this is a fantastic site that reveals a lot about changes in the UK Job market. These changes are likely repeated elsewhere but I have yet to find a site that gives statistics in North America. Firstly take a look at the chart showing the total demand for staff. In September 1999 it was about 10,000 peaking at 18,000 in March 2001 after which it declined exponentially but seems to have leveled out at 4000 current advertised positions. This overall pattern repeats itself throughout the statistics including a reduction in hourly rates. Now take a look at the chart for the Dot-NET Skill. Not surprisingly this chart is exceptional showing a steady increase from 30 in 2001 to 140 now. So to all you people, who have become recently certified but can't find .NET work, I say just be patient, your day in the sun is coming. If this chart keeps moving up employers will not be able to find enough candidates with experience and will start hiring on the value of certification. There is one problem however. The Dot-NET Skill is rated at 28 per hour versus Java at 35 and J2EE at 36. Demand for J2EE seems to have started to move up recently with 160 currently open positions. Demand for Java is still flat with 400 open positions. It would seem then that the demand in the Dot-NET Skill is coming from new small scale projects with limited budgets and has not yet progressed to large scale commercial projects requiring team work and methodologies. The business press indicates that this will change in due course, for example a large insurance company recently acquired another one and immediately put all the Mainframe development on hold. They also decided to terminate their outsourcing arrangements and bring all development back in- house. Their plan is that all new development will be in DOT NET. They have seen the benefits compared to J2EE including a very big performance advantage and internationalization. Something else that you can see in the Statistics is that demand for some Job Titles has moved up relative to the rest. The demand for the Analyst Programmer title has dropped precipitously while the demand for the Project Manager title has remained somewhat steady. In fact what the stats don't tell you is that these days there is an increasing demand for multi-skilled people. For example DOT Net technical strength combined with the project management skill. Thus if your scars have grown longer with age and you are about to sex up your CV, I suggest placing a big emphasis on project management. You might also think about gaining certification in some of the PM Methodologies.