LONDON, UK: Demand for IT professionals with strong Linux skills is expected to surge as a result of Google’s upcoming release of the Chrome operating system reports CV Screen, a IT recruitment agency in UK.

The system which will look to rival Microsoft Windows will be built on the open source Linux kernel and is anticipated to be launched in the second half of 2010.

Google itself is currently recruiting for Linux Software Engineers and CV Screen anticipate that Chrome will help to sustain the demand for IT professionals with experience of Open Source technologies.

CV Screen’s job index shows that whereas the number of IT Jobs has dropped by over 55 percent over the last 12 months, the number of Linux Jobs has dropped by only 30 percent over the same period.

The director of specialist IT Recruitment Agency CV Screen, Matthew Iveson, commented about the findings: “In what has been a tough marketplace, we have seen demand for OpenSource technologies such as PHP, Linux and MySQL hold up fairly well and it is one area where we have been regularly placing candidates.”

In the long term, it is unclear how Google will look to support Chrome and Iveson commented: “We anticipate that the long term impact will be an increased demand for IT professionals who are required to support Linux based systems. This is likely to mean that Linux professionals with qualifications such as LCP, LCE or RHCE will be much sought after by employers."