Legal Job Market Report
Summary
June has been a mixed month, but generally quiet in comparison with other years. The World Cup and uncertainty over Brexit have both contributed but by far we think the largest effect on the job market has been GDPR legislation coming into place in May. In House legal roles have also increased on the locum side – particularly commercial work as opposed to corporate. In house departments seem to be increasingly in favour of looking at RPO agreements and secondments from law firms in order to save on contract fees. Zero hours arrangements with fee earners at smaller firms are becoming fairly widespread – ie practices utilising consultants on an as and when basis – and this is markedly different to the job market a few years ago.
May-July is traditionally the busiest recruitment season – although a lot of things about this year have not followed the usual patterns of activity. Locums are still available (this is not usually the case) and permanent staff are not applying for roles in usual numbers.
On the high street side we have seen a lot of activity around the recruitment of LAA supervisors for new contract awards – see our article below on how not to recruit an LAA supervisor.. By way of aside, private client vacancies have strangely gone very quiet indeed, but property is still busy.
Statistics
July 4th 2018 – Summary:
* Permanent vacancies up
* Locum assignments up
* London vacancies: 156
* South East: 383
* South West: 86
* Midlands: 56
* North West: 95
* North East: 61
* Wales: 20
Statistics for June (May in brackets)
Current live vacancies: 862 (818)
New permanent vacancies added in June: 38 (50)
New locum vacancies added in June: 46 (55)
New candidates registering: 38 (69)
Average ‘Job Strength Factor’ for new vacancies: 3.4 (Good)
TP Legal Recruitment publishes the number of new vacancies, new candidates and indicate the increase or decrease from the previous month. We aim to assist the legal profession by showing the market from our perspective. Our clients tend to be high street law firms and smaller sized commercial practices.
The average job strength gives a good indication of the market because:
1. A poor Job Strength on vacancies indicates a struggling market. When trade is bad, employers seek options for increasing turnover which involve sourcing candidates with their own following and no salary.
2. A strong Job Strength on vacancies indicates a buoyant market, particularly if it is in connection with an increase in numbers of new vacancies.
Vacancies are each graded 1-5, with 5 being a very strong vacancy and 1 being a very weak vacancy.
