Recruiters now seeing signs of broader economic recovery
Hays has become the latest recruitment company to declare a thaw in the UK jobs market, with net fees in the last quarter of the year up 10 per cent.
Hiring is on the rise in construction and there are pockets of jobs growth in financial services, finance director Paul Venables said.
“In the City of London we’ve grown by about 10 per cent. It’s not driven by banking but there’s better general sentiment… More candidates who are in jobs have been registering with us in the last three to six months,” he told City A.M.
“It’s not happening as much in the large banks, but we’ve seen quite a lot more activity from clients in the second tier institutions, [and] the insurers and the lawyers.”
For the country as a whole, Venables believes recruiters are benefiting from “the start of a broad economic recovery”.
He said companies are making more counter-offers when staff have a new job lined up, in a sign of confidence that should help to boost overall wages.
And there is good news for qualified architects, who are in huge demand on both housing and commercial projects.
“We have done more with UK architects in the last six months than we have in the entire four years previously. And many of them are recruited for the front end of projects, so there’s work stacked up in the coming years," said Venables.