Engineering contractor demand surged during January 2014, taking the category from sixth place in the demand league table during December 2013 to first place in the first month of 2014. The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC)/KPMG Report on Jobs also showed that vacancies across the board grew at their fastest rate since May 1998.
It seems that the engineering boom is down to infrastructure improvements, as REC’s Tom Hadley explains: “Britain’s building boom and major infrastructure projects have seen demand for permanent construction and engineering workers soar this month. However recruiters are struggling to source skilled people to satisfy this demand.”
But Hadley warns of ongoing skills shortages: “The report shows many of the latest in-demand roles are being sought by employers looking to invest in staff to build their businesses – including customer services, marketing and sales roles, although there are skills shortages across all sectors.
“This again underlines just how critical the issue of skills shortages is becoming, as businesses will not be able to contribute to economic growth if they cannot find the skilled workers they need,” he adds.
On a more positive note, KPMG’s head of business services Bernard Brown observes: “Employer confidence continues to grow, with the thirst for new staff hitting a fifteen-and-a-half year high in January. In a week showing improvements to UK construction figures and growth across the Eurozone manufacturing industry, it shouldn’t come as a surprise if other sectors begin to report peaks in performance.”
Contractor agency billings grew again during the month, which recruiters “attributed to increased activity levels at clients”. It seems that some contractors were hired during the month while clients searched for permanent replacements for specific roles.
There also appeared to be a trend where workers chose temporary contracts over a permanent employment contract to, as KPMG’s Brown puts it, “‘try before you buy’ before committing to long-term roles”.
This is the first time that the report has identified such a trend, and it will be interesting to see whether workers opting for this route end up becoming career contractors.
Elsewhere in the contracting sector, the core disciplines of accounting and financial, IT, interim and construction were all firmly in growth territory, but lagged behind the growth seen in blue collar and lower skilled/lower paid temporary sectors.