Legal Job Market Report – August 2024 from Ten Percent Legal Recruitment, specialists for permanent and locum legal recruitment in the UK for solicitors and legal executives.

Here is our summary of the current state of the UK legal job market.

Locum Recruitment – Steady

Locum work has increased from last year and is busier as usual in the summer season. Conveyancing cover requests have increased, office based work hourly rates have increased, and law firm clients are reporting much larger caseloads than last year. In house assignments are down still. A quick look at the most recently posted roles shows fields of law include commercial litigation, conveyancing, commercial contracts, wills & probate and commercial property. Number one difficulty for recruiting locums remains the preference of a significant proportion of locums to do remote working rather than office-based work. This is still an issue across the UK, particularly for wills & probate.

Locum assignment updates here: https://www.interimlawyers.co.uk/category/locum-solicitor-updates/

Permanent Recruitment – Quiet

Pretty standard for the summer – permanent roles are lower than usual and there is less activity on this side of the business. We still have a wide range of vacancies coming in for fields of law – wills & probate remains extremely popular and difficult to recruit for in all areas of the UK. Salary levels are increasing in the field. Recent vacancies in have been for corporate commercial, in house, conveyancing and family plus others. A good proportion of permanent vacancies remain unfilled after 3 months – mainly because of the lack of candidates generally in the market.

Permanent vacancies can be viewed here: https://www.ten-percent.co.uk/vacancies/

New Candidate Registrations – 30% increase

Candidate registrations are a very good indicator for market conditions. Increasing numbers of candidates register with us when the market is going down, and drop when the market is on the up. Numbers are up by c30% for the last month compared with the previous year. This is a slowdown on previous months (last month the figure was 215%). The REC monthly report is still indicating a general increase in candidate numbers across the board with their sample of recruitment agencies.

Law Firms for Sale – Busy

Busy as ever. A lot of fresh enquiries coming into us daily for our featured firms and we have seen the usual uptake in new law firms looking to list for sale. A number of deals have also recently completed, including a couple that have taken an extremely long time to get over the line.

Full details of firms currently for sale on our website – list updated daily. For valuations, exit planning or a confidential discussion about a potential sale or acquisition generally please ring 01824 780937 and speak to Jonathan Fagan or Taillte Mallon, or email jf@jonathanfagan.co.uk

Ten Percent Group statistics for July 2024 (2023 figures in brackets)

New locum roles added – 25 (17)
New permanent roles added – 29 (25)
New candidates added – 48 (37)

KPMG & REC Report on Jobs UK – August 8th 2024

Staff appointments continue to fall
Pay rates up again, albeit at slower rates
Further uplift in candidate numbers

Commentary from Jon Holt, CEO of KPMG UK
“While the Bank of England’s easing of interest rates will have provided a much-needed lift to businesses and the investment market, the impact on the economic outlook will not be felt immediately. This latest survey data was gathered before the rate cut, and it gives a subdued picture of the labour market as the downturn moves into its second year. Despite the stability of a new Government and easing inflationary pressures, employer confidence to recruit has not yet returned, leading to delays with permanent hiring and even a small contraction in the temporary market as worker contracts are not renewed. In the sectors where employers are still hiring, a lack of skilled talent continues to drive pay growth. With forecasts for economic growth improving and potential further interest rate cuts over the coming months there are green shoots of economic recovery. But it’s still early days for this new Government and businesses may be cautious to hit go on their full recruitment and investment strategies until they have heard more from the Chancellor in her Autumn Budget.”

Commentary from Neil Carberry REC CEO
“Employers are gradually emerging from the woods, gaining optimism for their businesses and the broader economy. London is setting the pace with a growth in permanent placements signalling the potential for an economic bounce back elsewhere in the country. In the private sector, permanent staff vacancies rose in July and temp vacancies grew for the fourth consecutive month – to the highest levels since October last year.”