Quarterly Temps Update

Every quarter, we will be taking a look into our Temporary Recruitment market, which covers Industry & Commerce, Financial Services, Not-for-Profit & Public Sector, Housing & Development, Technology and Risk & Compliance Teams.

Industry & Commerce 

2023 was another busy year for the temporary finance recruitment market across commerce & industry. It was, however, a year that was largely shaped by the tight economic conditions faced around the world.

When speaking to our clients it was apparent that uncertainties about inflation, supply chain disruptions, and geopolitical tensions meant that they were cautious to hire. We saw lots of key players across a variety of industries make large rounds of redundancies and implement hiring freezes.

This did mean, however that the temporary market was generally busy, as businesses sought interim resources to get by. This was especially apparent in Q4, as businesses required strong technical candidates to assist with their year-end reporting.

Fortunately, we had a very steady flow of strong candidates this year and saw the highest number of newly qualified ACA Aussie & Kiwi candidates arriving in the UK since pre-pandemic.

The remote work trend continued to shape the landscape of the market, with companies embedding hybrid work models as standard practice. As a result, this expanded the pool of available talent beyond geographic limitations, which opened up the temp market a lot.

We predict another busy year for us on temp, and if you would like to discuss this further, please email Annabel Higgie: Annabel.higgie@goodmanmasson.com

Financial Services

The last couple of months within Investment Management have been relatively quiet in the contract accounting space. However, Q1 is already seeing an uptick in the need for extra resourcing. The general sentiment is positive for this year in comparison to last year. However, this is not expected to be a uniform pattern in the sector. Based on a recent survey GM completed, it looks like hedge funds are expecting the largest bounce back in the market, while private equity expects a slower return. Overall, most signs point to H2 being when the demand for hiring will be the highest.

Please email Caitlyn Gallot: caitlyn.gallot@goodmanmasson.com to discuss this further.

Not-for-Profit & Public Sector

January has gotten off to a very buoyant start in Not for Profit and Public Sector Finance, much quicker than we’d anticipated so early on in the new year. Very good news for immediately available candidates looking for a role in the Third Sector! We’ve come into 2024 seeing a real mixture of interim vacancies, from Interim Financial Accountants and Financial Controllers to Interim FBPs and Project Finance roles; there’s also been a busy start to Interim Head of Finance roles but a slightly smaller number of Directors (and above) level interim vacancies which seem to be mostly permanent at the moment. Please reach out to magella.burnett@goodmanmasson.com if you’d like to discuss opportunities within this space.

Housing & Development

January has seen a slightly slower start to the year than normal from local authorities, as budgetary constraints seem to create a slight hesitancy to hire. However, we have seen an increase in Capital Project roles as Local Authorities in particular. We are expecting to see continued growth in Regeneration roles as organisations continue to focus on how they can make existing assets better instead of focusing on new builds for the short-term.

Levelling up funding programmes will start to take shape, and we are predicting some really interesting senior-level roles developing as a result.

If you would like a further discussion on this, then feel free to drop Jeanette Eccleston an email: jeanette.eccleston@goodmanmasson.com

Technology & Data

Economic conditions, coupled with ongoing permanent hiring freezes across both the public and private have meant a slower start to the year in the Technology and Data contract market. Despite this, we have already noticed an uptick in requirements across our Higher Education, Not for Profit and Technology Clients.

As always, though, faced with uncertainties and cost considerations, companies increasingly turn to temporary and contract workers to fill their gaps in permanent teams, spanning both projects and day-to-day operations.

Demand remains high for niche skillsets across data, technical project management, software development and AI. Large Digital Transformation programmes are making up the lion’s share of opportunities across every industry we operate in, and more funding should be released in the public sector in the new financial year.

However, we anticipate that the market will remain relatively tight for the first half of the year, with a bounce back by Q3 and H2 in 2024.

Although flexible and fully remote contracts are the most appealing to the contractors we work with, there has been a notable change in our client’s demands, with most companies asking contractors and permanent staff alike to attend the office a couple of times a week minimum.

For further discussions and insights, feel free to contact Megan Dack at megan.dack@goodmanmasson.com.

Risk & Compliance

The shift in market conditions has caused a slow start to hiring plans within Compliance. The ratio of FTC to daily rate contracts has steered heavily towards fixed-term contracts. Goodman Masson’s Banking and Financial Services clients are in a period of hiring freezes, and therefore, cost-cutting exercises have been implemented. A slow start to Q1 is predicted, with a more positive outlook and hope for Q2 after most bonuses are paid and budgets are discussed.

However, our recent Hiring Survey suggests most Banking & Financial Services clients are predicting hiring trends to increase in H2, envisaging Hedge Funds to have the strongest recovery.

If you would like to learn more about the market, reach out to Chris Norton: chris.norton@goodmanmasson.com