September IT Recruitment Market Update
We have received an unprecedented amount of vacancies over the last three months which is in line with the “The Report on Jobs” by the REC and KPMG stating that the current period of expansion has now been over 25 months?
The report also mentions the strongest growth within permanent recruitment has been within the IT and Computing sector. In relation to contractors the Engineering and Construction industry has been the busiest followed closely by IT.
Clients over the last three months who have been recruiting permanent candidates have taken a cautious approach to hiring decisions amid uncertain economic climate which we also feel is also subject to the holiday season and the riots.
In the first week of September commitment and the number of offers being extended from clients has more than made up for the previous months however due to the delay of CV feedback, turnaround of interviews and offers candidates have been offered more vacancies and many clients have lost out due to the surge in competition of the available roles.
The salaries of the permanent vacancies are generally offering the market rates with few paying above, for our latest salary guide please visit: http://www.langleyjames.net/Articles/17/Salary_Guide.aspx
Short term contract hourly rates have quickened to a three month high not unusual for the season.
The most common reason candidates are stating they are considering new positions is seeking a rise in their salary, due to inflation they have seen a rise in their living and travel costs and annual salary rises have not been offered. This has already left many candidates at new job offer stage, susceptible to being made counter offers by their existing employers.
The most common level of vacancies being registered with Langley James have been in the 25k bracket with clients seeking candidates that are about to make their first career move to their second role in IT with between 18 months and 3 years’ experience. These candidates are particularly scarce due to the time they would have begun their career (between 2007–2009) and the fact it was the height of the recession when few companies were offering entry level positions and the height of the period when redundancies were being made. These candidates are also susceptible to accepting counter offers as they have not encountered this before and feel flattered
We recommend to clients about to embark on recruiting to take into consideration and increase on market rates and incentives to encourage those considering changing roles and to be able to complete the recruitment cycle as quickly as possible.
We are finding that the majority of the candidates we are successfully placing are those from our own extensive internal database as opposed to those directly from Advertising i.e. we are utilising our networking and headhunting skills. The advert response has generally been from candidates that are curious and browsing but are uncommitted and whose egos are lifted by the volume of vacancies they are being offered via adverts
“The Agency Workers Regulations 2010 (AWR) hailed as the most significant legislation ever to hit the UK’s private recruitment industry – that will change the recruitment landscape forever, starting from October 2011 and won’t be enforceable until 26th December when the first of the contractors will have served 10 consecutive weeks and even at this late stage is still subject to change. As David Cameron, the Prime Minister, reportedly on the 6th September is prepared to take a new look at the Agency Workers Regulations”.
Some agencies, it has been reported, are looking at making a sacrifice in relation to the AWR just to see what the outcome will be as the answers to some questions poised have been “We will have to see what happens on a case by case basis”
For more information on the AWR visit the REC (Recruitment and Employment Confederation) website, of which we are members http://www.rec.uk.com/awr
Our success to source the best IT candidates for your roles either short term contracts or permanent, is due to our ability to network and headhunt from our internal database of in excess of 100,000 IT Candidates predominantly in the South East, built by Langley James over the last eleven years. We utilise online job board databases and social networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook, we continually advertise and are able to write appealing highly responsive adverts (the Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Agency background does help!!) that are published on more than 20 different tried and tested job boards including the most common and niche specialists boards and social Networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. We continue our effort to be innovative and offer pragmatic solutions to your IT resourcing issues.