New employees are taking up IT roles at four times the rate the retail sector is hiring.
The figures, revealed in research by specialist technology recruiter Greythorn, highlight the growth in online and other technology or design roles while traditional sectors like retail are still struggling.
According to Greythorn last year saw a rise of 12% in IT and web design hiring compared to just 3% in retail hiring.
The biggest increase has been in web designers up 19.4% from 31,000 to 37,000 roles, while the number of IT business architects and system designers has risen 18.8% from 85,000 to 101,000 in the same period.
Overall this equates to 32,000 IT and web design jobs which matches recent research by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) showing online sales grew at two and a half times the pace of total retail growth
The BRC figures revealed online spending grew 10.9% in the year to February 2013 well ahead of total retail sales which were 4.4%.
A number of large online retailers have also increased their IT teams, including John Lewis who brought in 100 new staff in January this year.
Greythorn has itself seen a huge growth of 89% in IT roles in retail over the past year compared with the previous twelve months.
Mark Baxter director at Greythorn said: "The list of high street insolvencies is becoming a roll-call, but there is a silver lining in the growth of IT roles.
"As online shopping grows, companies are increasingly investing in improving the customer experience and the back office operations supporting online sales.
"It is a key stage in transferring to a high tech economy, the number of specialised new roles is growing and that is only good news for IT professionals."
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