To say the war in Ukraine has caused the dysfunction in the UK’s energy strategy to be exposed is an understatement. Renewable energies, whilst in unit cost terms are coming down, don’t generate sufficient power all year round to be viable. What this had meant is the UK would be generating a surplus over summer, whilst buying power from the continent over the winter. Up until the Ukraine war, that had worked and had meant the long-term storage facilities at rough had been shut down for example, as power had always been available from the continent.
Keeping an eye on regulatory changes impacting your sector is a key way to stay one step ahead of the market. Recently announced, the Data Protection Act 2023 has caused a rise in hiring data privacy lawyers, making it the top skill in demand for in-house legal counsel nationwide. Data Privacy now accounts for 8.4% of all in-house legal vacancies, surpassing other specialist functions.
When Bill Gates was asked in 2016, which three areas the students of today should focus on to be future-proofed, he said economics, mathematics and computer science. Just over five years later, generative AI is changing the paradigm again, where for people in IT Development, they are not just the disruptors, but also becoming the disrupted.
The Architecture and Design labour market, which reached its zenith in 2022, is now poised for a significant decline in 2023, with an estimated -10.9% decrease in professional vacancies, bringing the total to 3,983 positions. Indeed, the increase in interest rates and the subsequent implications on borrowing costs for developers means that with the cost of capital going up, there has been a slight dip. That combined with the Conservative party scrapping housing targets, has also led to a slowdown in demand, according to the latest UK Real Estate Labour Market Trends report by market data analysts Vacancysoft.
