British companies are clamouring for more workers with IT skills to make full use of new technologies, according to a market analyst group.

The Yoh Index of Technology found that both UK and global demand for IT skills will continue to grow by between six and ten per cent at the start of 2008.

Knowledge about session announcement protocol (SAP) is reportedly in high demand, with Yoh predicting a rise of 85 per cent over the next few months.

In addition, Illinois-based IT trade organisation CompTIA suggested that help desk and technical support experts are likely to be wanted by companies as they continue to expand their portfolio of business applications.

Web-based services are likely to form a significant portion of these applications, CompTIA claim, with knowledge about AJAX and PHP technologies set to also feature among firms' most-wanted IT skills.

This follows a report from Access Markets International that suggested small and medium-sized businesses have increased their investment in IT services over the last year.