As ever the recruitment market is volatile and reacting constantly to the unstable economic landscape. March 2023 saw a slow down in recruitment after a busy start to 2023. This is often a trend at the end of the financial year while companies wait for new hiring budgets and typically employees wait for bonus payments before making any decisions to move.

This is particularly common in tech, finance and professional service industries rather than consumer, charity and the public sector. We have seen April picking up post 6th of the month and again the market is tight in terms of candidates with employment at one of it’s lowest levels on record. Good candidates have been snapped up quickly and companies being laboured with hiring processes have often missed out on securing the best talent.

We have seen a big investment in bonus and benefits to attract talent and encourage all companies to continue to review and invest in these areas as pay is currently not keeping pace with inflation so is down in real terms. We will have more information on this in our bi-annual salary survey and market insights at the end of April 2023.

At Bain and Gray as always, we are engaging constantly, and in new ways with our candidate network. We have an incredibly rich and historical ‘passive’ database which allows us to reach those that may not be actively seeking work, but who may wish to hear about roles that might be attractive to them as they arise. We continue to build and strengthen our links at grass roots level, so continue to work closely with the business college in Oxford and London, as well as College and University connections. We will be running our annual work experience programme again in June, with The Oxford Media and Business School, and see this as a great opportunity for our clients to get first access to talent, and we expect hiring to result from this in the Summer after graduation.

All in all it continues to be a candidate’s market and we encourage our clients to remain agile, and invested in hybrid working, and attractive benefits with company culture and inclusivity at the forefront of their hiring and growth strategy.

For more in depth information and insights, we will have our latest bi-annual salary survey and market review published on our website at the end of the month: www.bainandgray.com