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.
In a world of ever-increasing risk, specialist insurance services rise as businesses look to mitigate their exposure. Hence, for the industry, 2023 has proven to be a busy year, with the sector being one of the top performers across all industries in terms of year-on-year activity this past year. On that point specifically, we saw vacancies drop by 15.1% compared to 2022. That compares to an all-industry fall of 30%.
Every generation bears witness to a technological jump which has the capacity to change the way we work. For example, from the first generation of mobile phones in the 1980s, through to smart phones and mobile devices this has transformed the way we do business. Nonetheless, we have seen increasing numbers of jobs displaced as different technologies have achieved scale.
In a sign of the times, industrial engineering, which encompasses aerospace and defence, has proven to be the top performing industry this past year, up 21% on 2022. At the same time the impact of quantitative tightening on the London market has been felt heavily across both finance and technology. As a result, vacancies in the capital are down 40% on the prior year.
