🔍 UK Hiring Trends - Q1 2024 Update 🚀

With the uncertainty of the UK market in the past 12 months, having a strategic approach to talent acquisition and retention has never been more important. Totaljobs' latest Hiring Trends Index and UK Tech Salary Guide reveals essential insights for businesses planning for 2024. Here's some key highlights from their reports:

📉 Market Overview:

• A shift towards a stable market, with job vacancies dropping to 934,000, though this is still above pre-pandemic levels.

• Wage growth is slowing, with an increase of 6.5% year-on-year, with rising living costs affecting many.

👩‍💼 Recruitment Dynamics:

• 78% of businesses continued recruiting in Q4 2023, showing resilience in hiring trends. There was however a 17% decline in tech job vacancies, reflecting cautious hiring in uncertain times.

• The average time to hire slightly increased, indicating a more cautious approach to recruitment. This is also reflective of increase of candidates being on the market, with employers struggling to manage an increased level of applications.

💰 Demand, Salary & Wage Growth

• Average Salary: The tech industry continues to lead with an average salary of £50.4k, boasting a 5% growth in wages year-on-year.

• The most advertised technology jobs in the UK and average salaries for these roles were: DevOps Engineers (£63,400-£72,300), Senior Software Engineers (£64,200 - £72,000), Java Developers (£68,800 - £71,900), Data Engineers (£57,600 - £64,700) and .NET Developers (£53,300 - £64,000).

🎓 Valued Benefits & Work Culture

• Beyond the Paycheck: Benefits like career development opportunities, training programs, and flexible working hours are highly sought after, continuing the focus on valuing work-life balance and long-term career growth.

💼 2024 Business Priorities:

• Tackling operating costs and meeting candidate salary expectations are top challenges for businesses.

• A significant focus on improving staff retention and engagement, with 46% of businesses prioritising this area.

📈 Forward-Looking Strategies:

• Confidence in recruiting the needed talent in Q1 2024 has risen, with 58% of businesses optimistic about their hiring capabilities.

• Industries like Real Estate, Construction, and Health Services are leading in recruitment activity.

💡 Strategic Moves for 2024:

• Emphasising staff retention, training, and engagement to navigate through financial uncertainties. Understanding the drivers for your employees will be key, can you offer them a working environment and path that is in line with their personal goals? Progression and professional development, alongside work-life balance, is equally important as competitive salaries.

• Investment in workforce development and diversifying recruitment pools are key actions for businesses aiming for long-term growth.

With a noticeable decline in hiring in Q3 and Q4 2023, we have seen several positive signs that indicate a more positive market in 2024. Noticeably, the number of Talent Acquisition positions advertised in the past four weeks has increased significantly, a positive indicator for the market's hiring intentions as we move into Q2 2024.

Though we have seen a decline in the volume of businesses that VC firms are investing into, there have been significant investments in 2024 made into UK start-ups at Pre-seed, Seed and Series-A rounds, another indicator of companies gearing up for growth 🚀.

Navigating the current landscape is a challenge for candidates and businesses. If you would benefit from a call to discuss your talent strategy or how to best position yourself as a candidate, you can contact me using the details below 👇🏻