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Regional Trends Report2016 in ReviewFebruary 2017

VACANCYSOFT B u s i n e s s I n t e l l i g e n c e t h r o u g h V a c a n c y D a t a

VACANCYSOFTB u s i n e s s I n t e l l i g e n c e t h r o u g h V a c a n c y D a t a

Contents

About Vacancysoft Data

Overview

Breakdown by Region

About APSCo

Analysis by Sector

Top 20 Companies

About Vacancysoft

Roger TweedyDirector of Communications & Research APSCo

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We are delighted to be partnering with Vacancysoft to provide new, regional insight on activity in the professional recruitment sector.

For this report we focus on activity in all sectors across the whole of England and Wales, identifying hot spots and key trends.

I hope you find this new research of interest.

Every day Vacancysoft monitors careers centres on thousands of company web sites, and gathers links where there is change. These links are then categorised automatically, and in the case of relevant content, by Vacancysoft staff.

The vacancies analysed herein were all advertised for England and Wales, and we initially found the vacancies between January 2015 and December 2016.

map for the cover based on d-maps.com

VACANCYSOFTB u s i n e s s I n t e l l i g e n c e t h r o u g h V a c a n c y D a t a

Vacancies by Company Size

Vacancies in H1 and H2

Vacancies Year-on-YearEngland & Wales, All Sectors, Trailing 24 Months

England & Wales, All Sectors, Trailing 24 Months

England & Wales, All Sectors, 2015 vs 2016

5,000 and below

JAN

FEB

MAR

APR

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

JAN

FEB

MAR

APR

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

SEP

OCT

SEP

OCT

NO

V

DEC

NO

V

DEC

2015 2016

Vaca

ncie

s pe

r M

onth

Vaca

ncie

s pe

r H

alf

5,000 +

3,000

2,000

1,000

51,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

53,000

52,000

54,000

55,000

56,000

57,000

58,000

59,000

60,000

2015

H1 H2

2016

2016

JAN

FEB

MAR

APR

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

SEP

OCT

NO

V

DEC

Vaca

ncie

s pe

r M

onth

2015

4,000

2,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

Overview

The last year was, in general, remarkably similar to the year before that. The overall change in the number of vacancies in England & Wales was just 0.92%, which is less than overwhelming. However, digging deeper into the data reveals a year of two halves. The first five months of 2016 would have given optimists reasons to be cheerful: while the number of new posts was admittedly up and down, every month was either better than the same month in 2015 or had no less than 99.5% of the demand of that month (January). The picture changed in June, which was slightly worse than June 2015, and from then on only one month had more than a single vacancy more than the corresponding month in 2016: November, which was up 6.5% year on year.

When comparing half year to half year, the data shows that there were 4.9% more vacancies in the first six months of 2016 than there had been in the same period of 2015. However, H2 2016 saw a fall in the number of new positions by 9.7% as compared to H2 2015. While one would obviously hope that H1 2017 can repeat the achievement of H1 2016 by outperforming its predecessor, the recent prediction from the World Bank that the UK’s GDP will fall in 2017 to 1.2% from 2016’s 2.0% gives cause for concern.

Another interesting change was the closing of the gap in demand from bigger and smaller companies. Throughout 2015 (apart from the traditionally quiet December) companies with headcounts of at least 5,000 had more vacancies than smaller companies, an average of 14.7% more every month. However, after another distinct gap in demand from February to May, in the rest of the year the two groups have very similar levels of demand. Could this data reflect larger companies (with their larger forecasting budgets) taking a more cautious view in H2 2016 and into 2017?

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VACANCYSOFTB u s i n e s s I n t e l l i g e n c e t h r o u g h V a c a n c y D a t a

VACANCYSOFTB u s i n e s s I n t e l l i g e n c e t h r o u g h V a c a n c y D a t a

Vacancies in Selected Industries

Vacancies in Selected Sectors

Vacancies By IndustryEngland & Wales, All Sectors, 2016

England & Wales, 2015 vs 2016

England & Wales, 2015 vs 2016

Vacancies per Year

2015 2016

OtherFinancial Services

Technology, Media & TelecomsProfessional

Services

ConsumerGoods

& Services

Healthcare

Public sector / NFP

FinancialServices

Technology,Media& Telecoms

ProfessionalServices

ConsumerGoods& Services

35,00030,00025,00020,00015,00010,0005,000

Vacancies per Year

2015 2016

2,000 6,000 10,000 14,000 18,000

Software & Computer Services

Insurance

Accountancy

Retail

Banking

Although 2016 overall was fairly flat, different industries experienced very different years. The sector which was best represented in our data was once again TMT, which had 4.75% more vacancies in 2016 than it had the previous year. While the other two industries of 2016’s top three were the same as they were in 2015, they had far worse years. The Financial Services industry was by far the hardest hit, with a 19.1% slump in vacancies. As that industry accounted in 2015 for more than a quarter of all vacancies in England & Wales, such a huge fall significantly affected the nations’ overall result: if one discounts the Financial Services industry, there were 19.99% more new job across the nations. The third biggest industry was again Professional Services. However, that Professional Services announced 9.2% fewer new posts in 2016 than in 2015, while the next largest profession, Consumer Goods & Services, announced 14.4% more year on year. If current trends continue, Professional Services may well drop out of the top three. Given that the LSE’s CEO recently warned that Brexit “could cost the City of London up to 230,000 jobs”, and the effects of Fintech, it may not be impossible that Financial Services might follow.

Looking at the data by sector (and excluding the law sector, where certain major firms do not advertise vacancies) the performances of the largest ones broadly reflected the performances of their respective industries. The only complete exception to this rule was the Insurance sector: although the Financial Services industry as a whole saw such a big fall in vacancies, the Insurance sector advertised 6.8% more new posts year on year. However, in the same industry, the Banking sector saw a substantial 29.2% fall in vacancies in 2016. The star performer was the Retail sector, which experienced a 22.0% surge in new positions.

Analysis by Sector

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Vacancies in Selected Industries

18,09%

-7,51%

Vacancies By RegionEngland & Wales, All Sectors, 2016

England & Wales, 2015 vs 2016

Greater London

EastMidlands

WestMidlands

Yorkshireand theHumber

North West EnglandNorth East

England

East of England

South West England

South East England

Wales

While Greater London is still the dominant region in terms of advertised new posts, 2016 saw that dominance slipping slightly. With England & Wales as a whole seeing growth in vacancies of 0.92% over the year, Greater London had a decline of 2.5%. That fall caused the region’s share in all vacancies to slip from 48.4% in 2015 to 46.8% in 2016. One should also note that the decline was faster in Central London, at 3.5%. Other parts of the region saw strong growth in vacancies, Uxbridge being a particularly good example, with a year-on-year rise of 42%.

The regions outside of Greater London together produced a better result, with year-on-year growth in vacancies of 4.2%. Of those nine regions, only three (South West England, North West England, and Yorkshire & the Humber) saw fewer vacancies than in 2015 (5.0%, 7.5% and 1.4%, respectively). Half of the six regions which had growth in new positions achieved double-digit growth year-on-year: the East of England, up by 12.8%, i.e. more than a thousand new posts; the West Midlands, up 15.2%; and North East England, with an 18.1% rise. The biggest improvement in terms of number of vacancies was by South East England, which in 2016 had 1,209 more than in 2015, a rise of 7.4%.

Drilling down into the data to see the individual cities, it is noticeable that the larger ones often did worse than the smaller ones, with two of the three biggest cities (London and Manchester) and six of the top nine all seeing falls in the number of vacancies. Swindon saw a particularly disappointing fall of 22.1%, although almost all of that was due to a single company (Nationwide) hiring fewer people in 2016. However, after those nine, the rest of the top fifteen all saw growth.

Breakdown by Region

VACANCYSOFTB u s i n e s s I n t e l l i g e n c e t h r o u g h V a c a n c y D a t a

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VACANCYSOFTB u s i n e s s I n t e l l i g e n c e t h r o u g h V a c a n c y D a t a

Company Sector 2015 2016%

Change

JP Morgan

HSBC

Nationwide

Vodafone

EY

Barclays

Deloitte

Sky

PWC

Lloyds Bank

RBS

GSK

BBC

AstraZeneca

Carphone Warehouse

Bank of America

Santander

Oracle

Microsoft

BNY Mellon

Banking

Banking

Banking

Telecoms

Accounting / Consulting

Banking

Accounting / Consulting

Media

Accounting / Consulting

Banking

Banking

Pharmaceuticals

Media

Pharmaceuticals

Retail

Banking

Banking

Software

Software

Banking

2331

2474

2382

1804

1409

1882

1315

1275

1277

1571

1402

841

925

869

589

779

719

639

695

709

2084

1860

1792

1414

1406

863

1259

1205

1105

593

548

1045

935

794

986

655

674

737

629

544

-10.6%

-24.8%

-24.8%

-21.6%

-0.2%

-54.1%

-4.3%

-5.5%

-13.5%

-62.3%

-60.9%

24.3%

1.1%

-8.6%

67.4%

-15.9%

-6.3%

15.3%

-9.5%

-23.3%

Looking at the twenty companies in the data in terms of the numbers of vacancies across 2015 and 2016, the financial sector’s presence is striking: a dozen of the top spots are taken by banks and accounting / consulting firms. The only one of the Big Four accounting firms which failed to make the top twenty is KPMG. All of the Big Four banks are listed, and only HSBC was not put into the shade in both 2015 and 2016 by Nationwide, the world’s largest building society.

However, it is those same five British banking firms which recorded the largest year-on-year falls in vacancies of all top twenty firms. Both Lloyds and The Royal Bank of Scotland advertised more than 60% fewer new openings in 2016 than they had in 2015. RBS had an annus horribilis, with losses in excess of £2 billion in just H1 2016, which was compounded by problems with the sale of its Williams & Glyn business, problems that continue in 2017. With Barclays announcing fewer than half as many vacancies in 2016 than in 2015 and HSBC and Nationwide both having 24.8% fewer newly announced posts year on year, 2016 was not a recruiting year the big British banks will look back on with undiluted pleasure. And things were not much better for their transatlantic peers: BNY Mellon, Bank of American and JP Morgan all saw double-digit falls in new vacancies. The only bank to make the top ten in terms of percentage change was Santander, which recorded an underwhelming 6.3% drop.

Only four of the top twenty had more vacancies last year than in 2015. The BBC did show slight growth, but that 1.1% rise equated to fewer than a dozen more newly announced posts. Oracle was one of only two software companies to make the top twenty and did significantly better than Microsoft (a 15.3% increase compared to a 9.5% fall). That trend may continue into 2017, as the firm is cutting hundreds of jobs in the US and has announced plans to expand its UK operations.

Top 20 Companies

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VACANCYSOFTB u s i n e s s I n t e l l i g e n c e t h r o u g h V a c a n c y D a t a

The Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) was formed to give all firms involved in the recruitment of professional talent that have a commitment to excellence, the specialist support and distinctive voice they need to be successful. It gives candidates and employers a trusted badge of quality whilst providing member firms with an innovative range of services designed for them by recruitment experts.

These services, combined with its growing international profile, commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility and opportunities for professional networking give APSCo members a unique opportunity to develop their businesses and gain competitive advantage.

The distinctive voice of the professional recruitment sector.Expert support and events designed by recruitment experts.Recognised as a trusted badge of quality.An international profile with separate operations in the UK, Germany and Singapore.Representing members we respect in a profession we understand.

101 Borough High StreetLondon

SE1 1NL

Tel: +44 (0) 8458 997 388Fax: +44 (0) 8458 997 389

London Northern England

Fraser House, Bridge Lane, Frodsham, Cheshire,

WA6 7HD

Tel: +44 (0) 1928 890 090

Singapore

7 North Canal RoadSingapore

Tel: +(65) 6536 9495

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Vacancysoft is a subscription-based data publisher for the Recruitment Industry.

Established in 2006, we now have thousands of subscribers worldwide, clients range from FTSE listed businesses to industry specialists, whereby we optimise business development and client care.

Our Vacancy Tracker provides real-time updates of the latest vacancies being published on company websites, with every user having the ability to create their own personalised feed. Sign up for a free trial at vacancysoft.com/FreeTrial

Our Market Reports are written in partnership with leading organisations in the recruitment industry providing unique analysis and insight on the latest trends and are frequently quoted in leading business media. Please email our support team at support@vacancysoft.com if you have any specific questions regarding this report.

Our Recruitment Industry Insights Newsletter contains all the reports, along with other analysis we produce and are published to all relevant people in the recruitment industry. Register for our newsletter at vacancysoft.com/newsletter.

Our Business Intelligence Unit then works with clients to provide bespoke solutions enabling greater insight on market trends enhancing strategy and planning. Contact us to find out more at support@vacancysoft.com.

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