Member Article

Skills Gap: South East recruiters see increasing demand for temporary placements

As the UK skills gap continues to widen, the South East job market has been adversely affected by a lack of suitable candidates, according to the latest research.

A report conducted by Hitachi Capital Invoice Finance reveals that a growing demand for skilled workers is driving an increase in contract roles, 60 per cent of recruiters in the South East report inflated demand for contract or temporary placements as opposed to permanent roles.

This problem is most pronounced in the Healthcare sector, in which 92 per cent of recruiters cited a ‘skills mismatch’ as their biggest challenge, closely followed by the logistics (90 per cent) and technology industries (87 per cent).

Moving forwards, this issue is likely to intensify due to changing immigration legislation; from 2016, non-European Economic Area workers will need to earn over £35,000 in order to settle in the UK for longer than 6 years. This change is likely to especially impact recruiters in the South East – 40% predicted a detrimental effect on the number of available candidates.

John Atkinson, head of commercial business at Hitachi Capital Invoice Finance, said: “While there are more jobs currently available, finding the right individuals to fill those positions is still a challenge. As the dichotomy between supply and demand in the South East job market continues to widen, employers will likely become more dependent on specialist recruitment agencies to source skilled workers.

Changes to immigration guidelines will have a huge impact, especially within the healthcare sector, which currently relies on thousands of nurses who fall below the £35,000 salary threshold required for an extended UK work permit.“

With market conditions favouring the utilisation of head hunters, especially in the sourcing of contractors, there is a huge opportunity for recruitment sector growth, potentially in the form of new start-ups companies.

However, it is worth noting that 38% of recruiters reported that cash flow this was their biggest challenge when starting out and 30% cited poor cash flow as the reason that most recruitment firms fail.

John Atkinson added: “In order to prepare themselves for an increase in demand, recruitment firms should invest in back office technology and work to secure cash flow now. Our research shows that high value, fast turn-around contract roles are increasing in popularity, the most financially stable and agile firms will benefit most.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .