Legal Job Market Report February 2019
in Legal Job Market Reports

Legal Job Market Report February 2019

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Summary

Each month we run a comparison between the last calendar month and the same time period in 2018 to see if there has been any noticeable difference in view of the political uncertainty. In January 2019 we saw a decrease of 52% in new permanent vacancies compared with January 2018. The number of new candidates increased by 42%. The number of locum roles remained fairly static. We think the increase in candidates may be an effect of the uncertainty as we have taken a few calls from partners in conveyancing practices who are experiencing a severe drop in the number of new instructions.

The recent IHT Markit/REC UK Report on Jobs found that in the last 4-6 weeks permanent appointments rose at the slowest rate since April 2017, the supply of candidates fell sharply, which led to further marked increases in starting pay.

Statistics

General Statistics for January 2019 (comparison is to January 2018)
Current live vacancies: 1031
New permanent vacancies added: 34 (72)
New locum vacancies added: 19 (17)
New candidates registering: 64 (45)

January 2019 – Live Jobs (comparison with Dec 2018 in brackets):
* London vacancies: 171 (171)
* South East: 480 (463) (+4%)
* South West: 92 (91) (+1%)
* Midlands: 74 (73) (+1%)
* North West: 105 (104) (+1%)
* North East: 75 (74) (+1.5%)
* Wales: 28 (27) (+3.7%)

We have 35 law firms for sale at the moment: 13% increase since Dec 2018.

 

Jonathan Fagan

Jonathan Fagan LLM FIRP is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. He has been recruiting solicitors and legal support staff for law firms and in house legal departments for over 20 years and handles roles from junior fee earners through to partners and law firm sales/purchases. A non-practising solicitor on the Roll since 2000, he is also the author of a number of legal career books, which are available at www.ten-percent.uk. You can contact Jonathan at cv@ten-percent.co.uk