A start-up is celebrating its first birthday by giving local recruiters and businesses free use of its unique IT contract job board.

ContractRecruit, based in Queens Road, Brighton, was the world’s first jobs engine solely for IT contractors.

It already has 15,000 members across the UK with 50 to 100 sign-ups every day.

The rapidly-growing firm is now looking to reach out to the city’s burgeoning freelance and recruitment community by offering them free use of its recruitment platform.

ContractRecruit allows contractors to show their availability in real time so their details go live at the correct moment and become available to recruiters.

Contractors can also communicate their exact rates and the locations they are willing to work using their unique mapping functionality that visually shows recruiters who is able to commute to a job and who would like to relocate to an area for a new role.

It was developed over 18 months by a group of Brighton-based recruitment and IT professionals who realised contractors’ needs were not being met by job boards in the same way as permanent staff or “permies”.

A small team developed the start-up with the city’s tech, IT and digital expertise a factor in its inception.

The potentially game-changing platform, also available on iOS and Android, has had more than 30,000 job applications and more than 5,000 recruiter sign-ups.

Duncan Paterson, marketing manager, said: “We’re making it available for local recruitment companies and direct hirers to upload their jobs and profiles free of charge as well as of course offering it for free to IT contractors.

“Recruiters can create a profile, upload their jobs, and search and find the best IT contractors with ease.

“The reason we’ve giving it away is because we want to give something back to the city.

“We’re proud of what we’ve created and want as many people to use it as possible.”

He added: “We’re not in it for quick wins, we’re in it for the long haul – we are building a strong brand and an innovative product that is needed in the market.

“It’s really growing fast, there’s a huge buzz around the idea.

“It took quite a while to develop, with all the unique functionality it’s a very intelligent platform, so to get it right has taken a while.

“The first year was a beta stage, the launch pad, but this year we’re pushing on.”

For more information go to contractrecruit.co.uk.