You can find just about any mix of skills if you try hard enough and are willing to pay a fair wage for it. Finding a Perl programmer with DB experience would be pretty easy relative to, say, finding an accordion player with drilling experience on off-shore oil rigs.

We're looking to hire a Perl programmer for a short-to-medium-term project, maybe lasting 6 months in planning, development and production and maybe a few more weeks or months after in testing, maintenance and any future developments.

It is important, however, that you have realistic expectations. When you say, "maybe lasting 6 months" it doesn't give the impression that you've really thought very hard about it. When you say, "a few more weeks or months after in testing, maintenance, and any future developments" it gives the impression you have no idea what you are getting into.

Where did you get those figures? You include "planning" in that 6 months. Planning what? Perhaps you mean "designing" instead because you really should already have a plan. You mention "production" by which I assume you mean "going into production" but you list "testing" as something to be done afterwards.

Maintenance is an ongoing task. It isn't just completed in a few weeks or months. You should plan to have someone on staff that can perform maintenance on the completed system. Asking the contractor to perform continuing maintenance might cost a premium and be less than reliable.

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";