Member Article

Skills vs. opportunity - employment in the North East

I recently read the CBI report ‘Growth for everyone’ which reported on employment trends across the UK.

What was of most interest to me was the reporting on the North East, with the key finding being that job prospects in the region were experiencing a significant upward turn. Though this is positive news the results also highlighted that there is a serious shortage of skills across all levels. This is the same conclusion that we reached in our ‘Salary and Market guide’ which was also published in 2014.

As our guide found, we have seen that the public and not-for-profit sectors are key employers in the North East, particularly within central government, local authorities and education institutes. Like much of the UK, the NHS continues to rely on interim staff in order to meet demand in the face of funding cuts. The public sector has become an attractive career option for candidates from a private sector background, who have relished the opportunity to deliver high standards of care under these increased financial pressures; seeing the challenge as an attractive addition to their CV.

Within the private sector there has been far more uncertainty in the region. Redundancies by Lloyds, Santander and HBOS over the last year have been significant, but we are finding that there are roles for these candidates to fill, but they are restricted by longer than average ‘gardening leave’ clauses, which prevent them taking a position, and threaten to flood the market when this ends on 31 March.

Recruitment consultant, Hayley Coulthard specialises in placing permanent staff within commercial businesses and financial services and identified one of the skill gaps she was seeing.

“Many financial planners have in-depth understanding of the outdated FSA regulations, but aren’t so clued up on the new FCA regulations, and anyone who has been out of the loop for a period of time, on maternity leave for instance, will not meet the high standards of employers like EY, who demand a Diploma 4 in Financial Planning.

“It is in these roles, that I’ve had to look to Leeds or London to bring in the calibre of candidates that is required.”

This in itself is a challenge. Management Accountants in the South East can demand £350+ per day, whereas in the North East a sum of £150 per day is more realistic.

So what is it that attracts people to the North East? As a graduate of Newcastle University I fell in love with the city as well as the surrounding areas of Northumberland and North Yorkshire – it really is a spectacular part of the country. But aside from my love of the region, it is also a highly competitive emerging market – manufacturing in the North East is booming with businesses like Nissan reporting a £4bn turnover last year.

This doesn’t just spell good news for the in-house accountant. Atom Bank, a new online bank will open in Durham in the next few months. The bank is headed up by Mark Mullen, former head of First Direct and aims to be the UK’s first ‘digital only’ bank. Atom chose to set up base in Durham, because it offered strong transport links and a world class university, but lower rents and overheads have meant they can invest heavily in the best technology and the best talent - they already employ 60 people in the area and this is set to grow over the next 12 months. Atom Bank will join Virgin Money whose UK base is in Newcastle, as key financial services players in the North East.

This trend is great news for the region, more and more innovative businesses setting up in the North East will be sure to attract recent graduates, as we’ve seen in Manchester and Leeds over the last decade. As the prospect of moving to London becomes a more expensive endeavour for graduates, who have paid top end tuition fees, increased pools of talent in the more cost effective North, is something that businesses will have to seriously consider.

Sellick Partnership are a recruitment business specialising in the placement of finance, accountancy and legal professionals in the UK. They have had a base in Newcastle city centre since 2002 and from there provide a complete recruitment solution in the private and public sectors, across the whole of the North East.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Jo Sellick .