Category: Uncategorized

• Permanent vacancies show 0% growth year-on-year
• Contract vacancies slide by 5%
• Demand for contractors in financial services plummets
• Average salaries dip by 0.3%    ?

?Professional recruitment firms reported that vacancy numbers flatlined in October with the number of permanent vacancies remaining unchanged year-on-year according to new survey data from the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo). This is in line with the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which reported in October that the overall employment rate remained stagnant at 74.5% in the three months to September 2016 – representing no change in percentage points when compared to the three months to August 2016.

The ONS data shows that overall employment growth has slowed sharply – with the 49,000 rise in the three months to September down from August’s 106,000 and well below the consensus forecast of 91,000.

The latest data from APSCo reveals notable variations between the trade association’s core sector groups in terms of hiring activity. While permanent vacancies across both financial services and marketing, for example, have increased (3% and 14% respectively), IT and engineering have both recorded dips of 6%.

Demand for contractors in financial services plummets 

Despite a recent analysis from EY finding that London could lose 83,000 banking jobs in the wake of Brexit, opportunities within the sector remained strong in October with permanent vacancies across financial services increasing by 3%.

However, temporary vacancies in the sector rose by just 1% during the same period, marking an end to a boom in demand for contractors witnessed in recent months. By comparison, in September opportunities for contractors increased by 8% year-on-year. In August this figure stood at 16%.

Engineering vacancies down 

Permanent vacancies within the engineering sector dipped by 6% year-on-year in October. This is in line with recent reports that UK industrial production fell unexpectedly in September, causing Britain’s trade deficit with the rest of the world to widen as exports dipped.

Average salaries down

APSCo’s figures also reveal that median salaries across all professional sectors dipped by 0.3% year-on-year. This figure is characterised by notable fluctuations in terms of sector, with IT, for example, recording an uplift of 3.3% while in banking average salaries were down 5.4% year-on-year. Average salaries within the professional sectors fall short of the national increase in pay as reported by the ONS which found that earnings grew at an annual rate of 2.4% in the three months to September 2016.

Ann Swain, Chief Executive of APSCo comments:

“There is no doubt that the economy has been more resilient in the months since the Brexit vote than many commentators were expecting. In August, the Bank of England was predicting growth of just 0.1% in the third quarter – it actually came in at 0.5%. And we avoided the economic downturn in the second half of 2016, which many had predicted, as consumers carried on spending despite market uncertainty.”

“However, as our latest data illustrates, the uncertain nature and timing of Brexit is now beginning to take its toll as we approach 2017. According to a recent survey of more than 1,000 firms by the Centre for Economic and Business Research, companies have abandoned plans for £65bn of investment since the Brexit vote.”

“This type of fall in confidence will, of course, impact hiring intentions. Which perhaps explains why economists and policymakers, including those at the Bank of England, are now expecting unemployment to rise as business takes a more cautious approach while Britain attempts to negotiate its way out of the EU, with the Bank predicting the jobless rate will rise to about 5.5% by mid-2018. The British Chambers of Commerce has also reported that Brexit was “dampening firms’ recruitment intentions” and that this would put “increased pressure on UK employment levels”.”

“Despite reports that firms such as Citi are planning to relocate to Dublin, permanent vacancies within financial services remain resilient. It seems that the recent frenzy of temporary hiring, which created a boom in demand for contractors, has now subsided and this has been replaced with more stable hiring activity.”

Source: APSCo

Global Recruitment Trends

The quality of candidates seems to be a factor that is valuable for employers, with 39% saying candidate quality is important.  Employee retention isn’t far behind with 32% of employers making employee retention a top priority in the next 12 months. Employee referrals are considered by 26% to be an integral part of recruitment and this area will be seeing a continued growth over the next year.

Another trend that has occurred in recruitment is branding. More and more employers are seeing the effectiveness of branding and 59% are increasing investments into this area to improve their brand compared to the previous year.

Biggest challenges

As with everything, there are challenges. The challenges that employers perceive to be difficult is finding the right candidate in areas with high demand (46%). 43% believe compensation is their biggest challenge while 39% feel that competition is a challenging factor.

Trends to keep in mind

There are trends that have clearly shown how significant they are compared to others and these trends do not show any signs of being neglected. Social media/Professional networks, employer branding, focusing on passive candidates and employee referral programs are all being adopted and being taken very seriously by employers in the years to come.

Trends that will continue to remain dominant are:

• 39% utilising social media and professional networks
• 38% employer branding
• 28% finding better ways to source passive candidates
• 26% employee referral programs

Social media and professional networks

Social media and professional networks is being seen as the best route in connecting with people, giving employers the tools to target the right audience at lightening fast speeds. Social media use has grown in abundance and employers/recruiters have taken note.

Employer branding

Companies are realising the value of branding.

Even after a dip last year, employer branding is re-emerging as a top priority (38%)

Employers are also using social media and professional networks for their branding strategies, while using company websites took a sharp decline. Reasons may be that it is easier to convey a message using social media and professional networks as hash tags (#), demographic and interest targeting enables messages to be seen by potential clients and candidates. Websites will not disappear as employers still need a central hub for information. Time may be another factor. Editing the website may take time as information of what is needed will have to be discussed with a web designer while social media needs only a few words, a link and an image for a message to be put across.

The budget for branding has improved and with the increase in budget there has been an increase in hiring volume.

Passive candidates

Passive and Active candidates both have attributes that recruiters look for. Although active candidates are seen to be the more sought after of the two as they are ‘actively’ looking for their next role, passive may maybe happy with their current position but when offered, may be interested in new employment. To attract passive candidates, employers will need to offer them an incentive; passive candidates have to be persuaded. Recruiters are noticing the importance and recruitment of passive candidates have increased by 4% from last year.

Employee referral programs

Employee referrals have seen a dramatic increase from the previous year and will continuing to grow during 2016.

Retention emerges as a top priority

Employee retention is a growing trend but contradictory to the results, internal referrals appears to be low priority. Hiring internally is a big key in retaining current employees but less than a third of employers think that internal hiring is a priority.

Looking closer into the results, employers and recruiters are making interaction more of a priority. Social media is being use to interact, build relationships and to inform candidates and clients. Passive candidate are not actively looking for jobs but employers are realising that they must not abandon them.

UK Recruitment Trends

For UK trends we will be mainly focusing on the IT industry but we will touch upon other industries.

Placement

IT placements in the UK are in favour of temporary staffing. Temp staffing has seen an increase of 0.6% while permanent staffing underwent a decline of 8%.

Demand

The demand in IT follows the same path as IT placements. Demand for permanent IT professionals decreased by 0.7 while temporary IT placements see a 2% increase.

We can see a correlation between Temporary IT placements and Temporary IT demand. Due to skills shortages affecting the IT sector, companies are in need of skills that they do not currently possess. To access these skills, they turn to temporary staffing.

The drop in permanent staffing does not have to be a negative but a result attributed to companies focusing on employee retention. If less IT staff are being placed in roles it may mean that employees are in need of permanent placement.

Salaries

The average salaries for those in the IT industry tend to be the highest compared to other industries in the UK.

The salaries IT employees receive have also increased by 2.2%, which can be a consequence to the increase in demand of temporary employees who are requesting higher premiums.

What can we expect in 2016?

In 2016, as the skills gap continues to grow we will see a higher demand for certain skills (Cyber Security being a big focus). This will give contract worker the opportunity to further increase their premiums, increasing the overall salary of the IT sector.

With social media being firmly cemented in company’s communications strategy, we can also expect companies/recruiters to continue to use social media for branding, job posting and building a community.

Sources from

APSco – Professional Recruitment Trends Nov 2015

LinkedIn – Global Recruiting Trends 2016

LinkedIn UK Staffing trends 2016?

Ann Swain, Chief Executive at APSCO explains “It is heartening to see that employment is continuing to rise and at 73.4% is the highest since comparable records began – and higher than the pre-downturn peak in early 2008.  This mirrors our own findings which saw a 25% rise in professional level vacancies year on year – although there was a slight cooling month on month mainly due to election uncertainty.”

A survey from CBI/Accenture employment trends 2014 explains that “50% of British businesses are planning to take on extra workers in 2015” due to the economic recovery. The recovery of the UK job market has also permitted pay increases for employees, where many companies have had to carry out pay freezes.

The drastically improved employment rate has not only affecting those finding jobs as new jobs are being created, but those who were already in jobs. The survey continues to say “UK workers are finally benefitting from a rise in real wages – where pay growth outstrips inflation – after six years of decline”.  As a result more permanent job roles are likely to be created.

Dr John Philpott has said in his Jobs Economist consultancy report “Although the pace of job creation in 2015 is likely to be slower than in 2014, a combination of strong employment growth and a return to solid real wage growth will make the coming year the best overall for the UK labour market since 2007.

On the downside Ann Swain explains the UK job market is seeing “… a 6000 quarter on quarter decrease in staff employed by the public sector – the lowest figure since comparable records began in 1999 – with the increased pressure on our public services this is a worrying trend.” However Dr John Philpott explains that although the employment in the public is declining “around half a million new roles will be created by private companies.”

Employers are trying to fill new vacancy that are appearing due to the economic up turn. Certes have a huge database of companies who are looking to fill new IT positions and in both public and private sectors.

Source: Apsco

SQL skills for both contract and permanent have drop considerably and have both been replaced with Microsoft. Both also see a rise in popularity in HTML . In contract, Java and JavaScript have decreased in demand, but permanent sees CSS and ASP.NET taking the place of C# and SQL Server respectively.

Cyber security continues to be a skill with the highest increase in demand for the permanent sector while Office 365 pushes ASP.NET WEB API of the top spot for highest increase in demand for the contract sector followed closely by Cyber Security.

Not much has changed for sectors with the highest demand as Banking and Retail remain unchanged. However E-commerce for both sectors has been overtaken by Telecoms for Contract and marketing for permanent.

?

This developing story is based around a huge leak of documents from the highly secretive Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca. These documents have exposed how many of the rich and powerful around the globe have used tax havens to hide their wealth, to launder money, to dodge sanctions and avoid tax. Presidents, Prime Ministers, international financiers, political donors and many, many more are being questioned on their connection to Mossack Fonseca and their management schemes.

The Panama Papers data leak of 11.5 million documents from Mossack Fonseca could not have happened in a pre-cyber world…

Read the rest over at Cyber Insights, brought to you by the National Cyber Skills Centre.

Certes specialise in IT staffing for all sectors and industries. We are now working with the National Cyber Skills Centre in order to provide staffing to companies in need of cyber security. For cyber security jobs search our site.

Technology is rapidly expanding as a sector in the job market and it requires a constant influx of talent and skills. Coupled with all the attention AI, machine learning and other hot tech topics are getting in the media, it is the sector most people want to work in.

Cloud, software and automation are beginning to transform, and in many cases replace, conventional jobs of factory workers, service workers and others. The stock market and investors value technology and software enterprises higher than any others, meaning that CEOs and founders of such companies are in all the lists of top billionaires. The next generation aspires to become the next Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs.

But what if you are not a tech genius who chooses coding and hacking as their main pastime?

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 Techies have a huge amount of skill and talent but what about the rest of us? Is there a way into the world of tech that opens the door to a successful career and a chance to leave an impact? Most of us often don’t realise that there are many jobs in the tech industry which do not involve coding or in-depth technical knowledge.

You would be expected to know at least the basics of what’s happening in tech and have a level of technical literacy, but the main reason for hiring you will be your existing skills and experience from a different industry.

Before we delve into the different jobs you can get in IT that will happily let you get away with being a non-techie, we need to debunk the two main myths that tend to deter people from pursuing a career in IT.

Myth #1: All IT jobs require coding skills

For some reason, many of us imagine IT companies as places that are filled with the ‘tech guys’ we see in films and television programmes. The ones that zoom into a photo just by looking at it, or are able to type a complex code that releases a nuclear programme by smashing random keys on the keyboard for 3 seconds (we can have a heated discussion about how realistic that is in another blog post).

The point is, we often misunderstand IT and tech companies. Yes, their product will use technology, but you don’t get an award winning digital business, or save millions of £ in otherwise wasted effort just by typing code. Someone has to understand what a modern digital business looks like, how people wish to purchase and use products, how do they want content presented and where in the business time and money are being misspent or wasted. These roles are, at their core, people-based and not normally fulfilled by the techies.

Are techies necessary? Absolutely. There is no tech without it. But technology, from apps to electric car manufacturing, require multiple experts in various areas working together to bring the final product to market. And there is a lot of non-coding work to be done.

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Myth #2: All IT jobs require an IT-related degree

Keeping our ‘tech guy’ stereotype in mind (let’s call him Steve), we assume that everyone that works at tech companies has a degree in something to do with computing or technology. Steve probably has a masters in advanced-coding-without-ever-looking-at-the-keyboard and his colleagues all come from top universities with 1st Class IT degrees. If you’re familiar with The Office, you know exactly who would loudly proclaim, “FALSE!” to this myth.

Yes, if you want to get into advanced coding jobs, a degree in the subject would certainly be an advantage. But since this blog is for those of you who are not aiming to become programmers and coders, an IT degree is not necessary. Researchers, accountants, marketers, project managers, technical writers and so many other roles found in tech companies have their own relevant degrees and courses, and the doors are very much open for such experts to join tech companies.

Many people still enter IT without a degree because on the whole, the sector is a genuine meritocracy – if you are good at presenting imaginative solutions to problems, can listen and understand what people and organisations are trying to achieve, then you can build a successful non-techie career in IT.

A brief disclaimer is needed before we head into the job descriptions of these roles. The non-coding members of teams are hired to carry out specific roles that they are experts in, not because their CV says, ‘I’m a tech enthusiast and I love IT. My favourite companies are Apple and Google and my dream is to become the next Steve Jobs.’

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It’s fine to like Apple (Android fans might disagree, we can have an Apple vs Android debate another time) but it is important that you have an area of expertise – whatever it may be.

And so, in no particular order, here are 9 rewarding careers in IT without a line of code involved:

1. Product Manager

Product managers (or product owners) are responsible for strategy, design, and execution of either the whole product strategy or a product line created by the company. Out of all the roles on this list, it tends to require more experience, and while coding isn’t essential, having some understanding will be beneficial.

They lead the development of a product, and come up with new product ideas. They strategise while the other teams ensure implementation.

They begin with an idea and form it into a tangible product through a series of collaboration with customers and software engineers. They are in the intersection between the business, the customer and the engineering of the product. The goal is to make sure the product is profitable and strategically aligns with the business, and ends up meeting the customer needs and wants as closely as possible.

A big selling point of this role is the satisfaction of seeing an idea become a product that is then rolled out to (fingers crossed) happy customers. A disadvantage, although it depends on you as a person, is that as in the Product Manager role, you seldom hold any authority over the design, engineering or any other person.  

Product Management is the fastest road up towards the senior leadership. Coming up with a highly profitable idea that is a great success in the market is a strong push towards a promotion. Many Vice Presidents and C-level executives started out in Product Management.

2. Project Manager

In some ways a Project Manager is similar to the Product Manager role although it is not entirely the same. Anything can be a project so it is not as product-focused as the previous role. Project Management opens doors to a wider spectrum of work purely because projects come in all shapes and sizes and are not necessarily production oriented.

Project managers are in charge of delivering every project on time within budget and outlined scope. They tend to have a background in general business skills, management, budgeting and analysis. It is important that you can bring out the best in people and projects that you oversee. You thrive when planning projects and working with teams.

Project managers supervise individual projects from the planning stage all the way to implementation, and are naturally apt at seeing the big picture without neglecting the smaller details. They work across teams, bringing together engineers, marketers, product specialists, and more.

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3. Program Manager

Program Managers (there are many PMs on this list but they are not the same) tend to work on a few projects simultaneously. They ensure that all the dependencies are resolved in a timely manner and nothing hinders meeting the product delivery deadline.

Program Managers spend a good proportion of their time in various meetings, checking up on status updates to ensure that everything is progressing well. You’re essentially a supervisor of the product schedule, communicating between various teams to make sure it all works together.

The exciting part is that ‘boredom’ will not be a commonly used word in your vocabulary. There’s always something happening and you will be able to meet and collaborate with various teams and people in different areas of your company. If juggling multiple tasks is a challenge you are keen to take on, if planning and scheduling is your second nature and if you always like having something to do, this is the role for you.

The drawback is that you have very little authority and most of the time you have no direct reports underneath you. It is important to be able to leverage your influence and communications skills to persuade others.

4. Technical Writer

This is where some understanding of tech is rather useful because you need to be able to write about intricate, often complex technologies in a way that is understandable for the average person, not just for Steve the ‘tech guy’. This is a valuable skill and is so important to the success of any company. If Apple’s advertising consisted of highly technical reports on the functionality of its iPhones, it would be a difficult product to sell. So if you have a flair for writing and an ability to translate complex ideas into clear and concise explanations, you are likely to do very well in a technical writing role.

However, there’s plenty of technical content to write that is not related to coding, whether it’s manuals, press releases or instructions.

5. User Experience (UX) Designer

Have you ever visited a website just to leave it straight away because the layout is confusing or you’ve got no idea what the page is for?

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User Experience or UX is all about making sure such interactions are eradicated and replaced by positive experiences that make people stay and interact with the website, and in the end, make a purchase / sign up or reach any other goal set by the organisation.

If you’re an analytical thinker, with a natural ability to spot and articulate the strengths and weaknesses of products, an ability to understand the needs of users and sifting through data to reach actionable conclusions, UX design could be the place or you. In addition, you’ll be able to make the users’ lives easier and gain a strong satisfaction from a job well done.

UX designers are in charge of the feel of the website and crafting a positive user experience. You would spend your time ensuring that everything works properly and especially that it works in a way that is easy to understand and navigate.

User experience (UX) designers create the website/app experiences with the end user in mind. The main goal is an ever-increasing user satisfaction.

A few main responsibilities include:

• User research: understanding users by using a multitude of tools
• Information architecture: working with an information architect, finding the best ways to structure content on a website or app
• Data-driven design: all of your suggestions and decisions need to be based on data from your research. Are website visitors leaving the ‘about us’ page because they are faced with an irritating pop-up every time? Knowing this will allow you to make the necessary changes.
• Wire-framing and prototyping: building test versions of websites/web apps

6. User Interface (UI) Designer

UI (user interface) designers focus their efforts on the visual designs for websites and apps. They design the appearance as well as how the interface functions, often closely collaborating with the UX (user experience) designer. In fact, it is not uncommon to see these two roles combined into a single job.

UI is similar to UX, but the focus of UI is narrowed down almost solely to the design of the interface.

UI designers tend to focus on the visual design throughout the whole process. You would make sure that the interface is consistent, whole and that all its components fit together in the best possible way. You would deliberately design each element of the site or app to make sure they all work together.

UI design is focused mostly on creating a clear, functional, attractive and easy to navigate interface for the user. It’s a brilliant tech-career choice for graphic designers or other artistically-inclined professionals.

7. Information Architect

Do you ever find yourself on websites and thinking to yourself about all the ways in which it could have been set up better? You might be very well suited to the information architect role. Another sub-specialty of design and user experience, this career focuses on optimising the structure and organisation of a website.

Information architects focus their time on designing the structure and organisation of content for a website. They look for the best way to present content to website visitors with the goal of providing a positive user experience; therefore they work closely with the UX and UI designers. They use information collected from usability tests to help figure out the best way of organising content and information.

As an Information Architect you would work across the whole project lifecycle from information gathering and developing concepts, all the way to producing deliverables and quality assurance. Most of the work will be focused on producing information architecture documentation (site maps, navigation models, user journeys and wireframes) for websites and apps alike.

8. Data Analyst

“Big data” is a buzzword we now hear everywhere, and for a good reason. Jobs related to data science are said to be in increasing demand and most everyone is hiring.

E very business collects data, there is no future without it for modern companies. It might be market research, logistics, sales figures or various costs. Data analysis jobs are for you if you enjoy analysing data sets, noticing and examining trends, and interpreting them to communicate the findings in plain English. Ultimately, the goal is to help the company make better and more informed business decisions.

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Mathematical skills are crucial for becoming and succeeding as a data analyst, specifically having a working knowledge of statistics. You should have well-developed analytical skills and be able to gather, structure and disseminate large sets of data.

9. Technical Recruiter

Technical recruiters are the people responsible for hiring technical employees such as programmers and developers. This is what we do here at Certes and it is astounding how much IT knowledge and exposure you can get by recruiting for IT positions. Matching companies with candidates and making sure that the skill and experience levels match give you a wide exposure to the latest news and developments in IT, giving you a chance to stay on top of all that is happening in the industry. Plus, it allows you to grow your network within the IT community, leading to future opportunities.

Despite not working directly with technology or coding, you’ll have to have at least the basic foundations of the tech concepts nailed down, simply because you need to be able to confidently hold a conversation with IT companies and potential clients.

As with any recruitment role, a big part of the job is representing the client company and making sure that the people you choose have a well-matching personality, skills and experience.

You also need to be very comfortable with a high level of communication, both in terms of people skills but also being able to grasp and use technical language confidently. But don’t worry – IT recruitment agencies always provide training in this and don’t expect that you come in with a prior knowledge of IT concepts and key terms. It is a bonus if you have a basic understanding or even some experience working in a technology field, but it is not a mandatory requirement.

So there you have it – 9 rewarding careers in IT that don’t require you to be a techie. If you’re interested but don’t know where to start, get in touch with us – we pride ourselves in successfully matching candidates with IT careers, both techie and non-techie.