After enduring a challenging six months, which ultimately led to the UK entering a technical recession, signs of recovery are finally beginning to emerge. The North West region has managed to increase its share of the national total from 7.5% in 2022 to 8.5% in 2023. Turning to the current year, we observe an uptick in the northwest’s monthly average, increasing by 5.3% compared to 2023, which bodes well for regional recruiters.
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.
The deceleration of tech-centric sectors in London during 2023 mirrors the broader downturn experienced across the UK, with IT vacancies plummeting by 50.5% in the capital compared to 36.3% regionally. Hence the fact that demand for IT professionals has fallen 42.8% compared to the peaks seen in 2022, is a temporary blip.
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.
The cyclical nature of Financial Services has meant that as interest rates rose, and the economy appeared on the edge of recession, recruitment slowed down significantly. All this has led to professional vacancies falling in 2023, with a 34% year-on-year decrease from 2022.
Perhaps inevitably, the post-pandemic period has resulted in a hangover for the sector, as the combination of quantitative tightening leading to a slowdown in funding for emerging biotechnology firms, combined with the delays associated with getting new trials approved over the period, has meant that in recruitment terms, 2023 really was a slow year. Indeed, vacancies in 2023 were 42.6% lower than in 2022.
