IT contractors are facing tough times as budgets bounce and new projects are parked. Keri Allan details the pressures at play on the jobbing freelancer. After several good years, IT contractors took a hit in 2009. The very nature of being reliant on the fluctuating requirements of other parties meant that they were among the first victims of the economic downturn, and according to figures from the Professional Contractors Group (PCG) the number of general computing freelancers in work fell by 12 per rent in the first quarter of last year, despite the additional funding being made available for IT projects as part of recent quantitative easing programmes.