Strong performance in Financial Services
Edinburgh
The strong demand across the Accountancy, Audit, Risk and Compliance sectors within Financial Services shows no sign of fading away. 80% of this demand is being driven by mergers, projects and restructures.
The other 20% is taken up by job creation in a small number of organisations.
In general, the market is looking up and has swung towards Permanent rather than Temporary positions. Although there is a distinct lack of confidence in the SME market thanks mainly to difficulties with bank lending.
On the positive side, recruitment within industry sectors is picking up and market indicators so far suggest that demand in Financial Services will remain strong throughout the year.
Glasgow
The key sector here is Financial Services & Practice. Despite a broad belief to the contrary, the current market is highly candidate driven and motivated by a strong demand for talent mainly due to the majority of high calibre candidates still being in work and reluctant to move.
On the other hand, Industry & Commerce is still slow, with not as strong a demand for people. Although there has been a massive increase in permanent recruitment, we haven't yet seen the anticipated rise in temporary and contract assignments we expected.
Within Financial Services, the main focus of recruitment has been for Audit, Risk and Compliance (known affectionately as ARC).
There is a definite buoyancy in the temporary market, again mainly in ARC, although thanks to Tesco's expansion and the RBS rebound, there is also a massive amount of interim roles available.
Recruitment throughout the compliance competencies is on the rise again, mostly surrounding ARC, but also Tax and Treasury and there has been a hike in the amount of Group level positions with some Scottish Plcs making strategic Gp FD and FC hirings.
The Professional Services market is also buoyant, particularly in Compliance however there are more and more Corporate Finance positions appearing.
The West of Scotland market is still slow in comparison to the East, but this is mainly due to the Edinburgh Financial Services hub.
