Contractors across the core contracting disciplines are benefitting from exceptional demand, as the skills gap persists despite an overall softening of the UK’s labour market. The shortage of engineers has become particularly acute.
This is according to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC)/KPMG Report on Jobs for June 2015, which also highlights that, although contractor billings have slowed to an eight-month low, there will be ongoing candidate shortages.
“The number of skilled workers looking for new roles fell considerably in June, stifling hiring activity and leaving the job market feeling somewhat lethargic,” highlights KPMG partner Bernhard Brown.
“This growing skills shortage is cross sector and cross discipline: recruiters are struggling to fill vacancies for everything from software engineers to sales.”
Candidate availability remains ‘tight’ amidst concerns that the lacklustre jobs market is stifling the growth of the UK economy. REC Director of Policy Tom Hadley explains: “Businesses are really struggling to find the people they need.
“Vacancies continue to rise, candidate availability has fallen steeply and we’re seeing this affect the amount of placements being made each month. The concern is that business growth is being constrained.”
“The primary concern remains the impact this unwanted pause in recruitment will have on the performance and productivity of UK plc; without the right staff it will be very difficult for businesses to keep pace with demand, let alone achieve their long term growth potential,” adds Brown.
ContractorCalculator CEO Dave Chaplin believes that contractors are best placed to fill the skills gap: “When billings fall at the same time as vacancies increase, you know that there are simply not enough suitably skilled candidates to go around. Contractors are well placed to meet these skills shortages, with rates likely to increase in response to supply and demand mismatch.”
The demand league table shows that contractor vacancies increased across the board during June, with the Midlands reporting the strongest expansion. Engineering was in second place in the demand league table, with Construction, Accounting / Financial, IT & Computing and Executive / Professional at sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth spot respectively.
Despite their low placement in the demand league table, all of the core contracting disciplines were firmly in growth territory during June.