On the first of January, the Labour Party announced its new deal for employees, contingent on their expected victory in the next election. Currently projected at an 88% likelihood of winning, businesses will need to review and update employee contracts to comply with the new regulations. Unsurprisingly, law firms are rapidly recruiting to bolster their employment teams faster than other practice areas.
The surge in vacancies for banking lawyers during Q1 2024, observed both in law firms and banks, reflects significant industry dynamics. 137 vacancies were posted within law firms, marking the highest total since Q3 2022. Extrapolating from Q1, 2024 is projected to see a 35% increase compared to the previous year. Similarly, there was a 17.7% increase in legal vacancies within banks compared to Q4 2023.
February saw Law firms post more vacancies for tax lawyers nationally than any other month over the prior two years. Furthermore, we expect a surge of 32.5% by the end of 2024. Factoring the regionalization happening within the sector, where the regions retain 80.5% of the national share, there has also been a noticeable shift in 2024 to date, with hiring in London on the rise.
The beginning months of 2024 have shown a decrease in recruitment compared to the post-pandemic boom seen in 2021-2023. Despite a dip in 2020 due to the pandemic, the Australian legal market experienced robust growth over the following years.
At a time when the sector has been depressed by the cyclical downturn due to quantitative tightening, this has led to a drop of 34.8% in London and 19.4% regionally. Within law firms, real estate remains the top skill in demand, although its market share has slipped from 22% in 2022 to 18% in 2023. This is partly due to a hefty 37% fall in vacancies in this area in 2023 as the commercial property sector has slowed down.
Looking at this year by business quarter, we can see that there was a 6.8% increase in legal vacancies across commerce and industry in Q3 compared to Q2, which bodes well for the remainder of the year. Q4 is typically the busiest quarter of the year for vacancies overall, so we would expect to see that translate into vacancies for legal counsel. This is according to the latest UK Legal Labour Market Trends report by Search, and labour market data analysts Vacancysoft.
