Articles From the Team

Demand for Staff Outstripping Supply

Demand for Staff Outstripping Supply

A recent report from KPMG and REC stated that demand for staff has risen at the fastest pace since 1998.

However as roles are increasing the rate of filling such roles isn’t raising at the same rate due to the serious shortage of skills across a range of sectors.

The Report on Jobs Vacancy Index posted the highest reading in over 16 years, reaching 68.2 in August, up from 68.0 in July.

In the legal sector the shortage in expertise is across a wide range of disciplines from costs, industrial disease and residential conveyancing to real estate and corporate law. At BCL Legal we are acting for clients seeking staff to fill jobs across all of these areas of law and more. If we were writing this blog five years ago the disciplines would have been very different. We need to be reactive to the market and our clients also need to react to the pool of available applicants and scarce market we are in. Firms have taken various approaches to solve this increasingly serious problem. Some law firms have invested in academies to be intensively trained on how to handle files as quickly as possible and others are lowering their expectations by recruiting staff with less PQE and again training them as much as they can as fast as they can. The danger for clients is if they don’t compromise on level or re-train now, they will lose out on the best candidates in the market to their competitors. With this lack of supply and high demand salaries are also on the increase. Today we received an offer for a qualified commercial property lawyer in the Yorkshire market which is 12% above market rate. If lawyers from the City were ever thinking of relocating to the suburbs or to the regions, now couldn’t be a better time to secure the best salary and benefits package.

Vicky Clark - Director, BCL Legal