Technology leaders are not in the same position they were 12 months ago, and certainly don’t enjoy the influence they did a few years ago when every business issue seemed to be technology related, stated a recent survey conducted by the U.K.-based recruitment and offshore firm Harvey Nash.

“In the next 12 months, more than half of all the technology leaders surveyed in this report will have moved jobs. With 23 percent already in their jobs for less than 12 months and a further 34 percent planning to move within the next 12 months, we could be about to witness one of the most dramatic migrations of technology leaders in recent times,” informed Albert Ellis, CEO, Harvey Nash.

There also appears to be a reduction in long-term loyalty compared to last year’s figures. Twenty two percent of respondents to last year’s survey had been with their employer for more than 10 years. This figure had been cut in half to 11 percent in 2007, suggesting that in a buoyant labor market loyalty will only go so far before valuable people are tempted by other opportunities.

The desire by so many respondents to move jobs within the next two years might suggest that levels of fulfillment with their current role would be low. Paradoxically, this is not the case as 78 percent claimed to be fulfilled, re-affirming that technology leaders see the process of moving jobs regularly simply as a way to advance their career.

However, of most concern to the technology leaders is the 15 percent drop in confidence from the leaders themselves that they are a valued member of the top strategic management team (only 61 percent thought the role of the CIO was becoming more strategic, down from 76 percent last year), concluded the research report.

Painting a melancholy picture, the survey of 650 technology leaders from the U.K. proved that change is the prevalent force in the current market scenario. Whether it is the admission by technology leaders that their roles are changing, and perhaps not in the way they would like, or the undeniable evidence that the movement of people throughout the market has increased, it is clear that we are witnessing a period of dynamism in the IT field.