- Volume of permanent financial services roles up for the second month in a row
- Number of Legal roles in the City increases by 105%
- Skills shortages compounded as number of city jobseekers declines
As confidence in the UK economy grows, the number of jobs in the City continued to increase in April, up 3% compared to the same time last year. The results of Robert Walters City Jobs Index1, which tracks the number of jobs available and candidates seeking jobs in the City of London month-by-month, also shows that in April there were a total of 9,765 job opportunities available and approximately 4,530 candidates job hunting across all professional sectors, meaning there is an average of 2.2 jobs available for every jobseeker.
The findings shows that in April 2015, Financial Services firms alone were on the hunt for 3,570 permanent professionals and 2,580 on contract terms. Compared to the same period in 2014, this represents an 80% increase in the number of permanent roles available and a 39% decrease in the number of contract positions, continuing last month’s trend towards employers favouring permanent hires.
Colin Loth, Managing Director, London and South East, comments:
“We are seeing candidate supply tighten across the city as the pool of skilled jobseekers declines at the same time that the number of vacancies increases. This combined with some uncertainty among candidates in the run-up to the election, and the traditional delays in job hunting due to New Year bonuses, has made candidate shortages particularly acute.”
Legal professionals in high demand
This month has also seen significant growth in the legal jobs market. The number of registered vacancies grew by 105% compared to April 2014. Candidate shortages were further exacerbated by the number of legal professionals looking for a new role decreasing by 29% compared to last month.
Colin Loth, continues:
“Continued regulatory pressure on banks has created on-going, high demand for professionals in the risk, compliance and legal fields. Many institutions are looking to reinforce their existing teams with highly skilled professionals in anticipation of more financial legislation coming into force; this is creating fierce competition amongst employers for these professionals.”
1. The Robert Walters City Jobs Index uses figures from Robert Walters database of jobs and candidate registrations, extracted on a monthly basis. Statistics for the full market are derived using estimated market share.
