New York Area Outdraws Silicon Valley For Tech JobsNew York Area Outdraws Silicon Valley For Tech Jobs

Move over, Silicon Valley, there's a greater call for IT professionals in the New York and New Jersey area than there is in Northern California, according to a new report.

Dice, an online career site for technology professionals, reports that there are 12,377 jobs posted for IT positions available in an area that encompasses New York City, Long Island, and northern New Jersey. By comparison, there are 9,393 jobs advertised for the Silicon Valley area, including San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland.

Washington, D.C., comes in third with 7,759 job postings. Los Angeles (6,604); Chicago (4,288); Philadelphia (3,705); Boston (3,701); Dallas (3,030); Atlanta (2,790); and Seattle (2,282) round out the top 10, according to a breakdown by region on Dice's Web site.

Dice analysts note that the Boston metro area continues to be a popular hiring market, particularly within the financial services industry. Ranking seventh, Boston has grown by 30% in the last year. That's up from 2,849 postings.

So what jobs are out there?

For positions dealing with operating systems, Microsoft Windows experts are the most popular, with 16,299 jobs posted, and Unix pros come in next with 14,710. For database experts, people who know Oracle products pulled in 17,181 job postings and Microsoft SQL wasn't far behind with 14,827. When it comes to programmers, the C and C++ languages were the most popular with 18,290 job postings, while Microsoft's .Net drew 14,807.

Dice analysts report that people with Microsoft SQL skills had the greatest growth in job postings with a 39% increase in the number of positions advertised; .Net showed a 38% increase, and Linux was up 37%.

The days when contractors had a lot more job offerings than those looking for full-time work seem to definitely have passed. The report shows that there are 37,781 job postings for contractors, compared with 65,075 for permanent workers.

In another report issued earlier this month, analysts said chief information officers across the U.S. are planning to add full-time IT staff in the second quarter as they gear up for a hiring process that is the second highest since the third quarter of 2002.

The Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Index and Skills Report found that 14% of CIOs interviewed are planning to add to their IT staffs, while just 2% are planning to reduce staff. That will set the stage for a 12% hiring gain.