MARKET OVERVIEW
The final quarter of 2022 concluded the year in a somewhat tame fashion. In a period dominated by economic and political uncertainty stemming from Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s “mini-budget” back in September, it seemed as though companies wanted to err on the side of caution. We did see several organisations decide to put significant expansion plans on hold, either retracting certain vacancies from the market or even consolidating their current workforce. However financial markets did stabilise following Rishi Sunak’s appointment and more accepted fiscal approach, leading to the value of the pound rising steadily and UK equities also receiving a boost.
There was an end-of-year push for recruitment, particularly in the latter half of the quarter. While the country remains in a recession and predictions that it could last for well over a year, optimism returned at the start of December when the U.K. government announced extensive reforms to financial regulation which will benefit the growth plans of financial businesses operating in the UK and that the current EU laws “choke off growth.” These proposals provide hope that despite an economic downturn, the government are attempting to alleviate the pressure through reform.
A continuation of the past few quarters from a candidate perspective is the need for flexibility in their roles. Some organisations have found it harder to retain and attract talent due to pre-pandemic working patterns of 5 days in the office, while others have slowly reverted to more days in than at the start of the year. Whilst being in the office and collaborating closely with colleagues has been a welcome relief to some, we are still experiencing flexibility in this regard to come out on top of candidate motivations when considering a new role – often beating remuneration.
Movers and Shakers
Over the past quarter, we have seen a few moves in the insurance space, although slightly fewer than earlier in the year. The following are some of the more senior moves we have seen in the final quarter of 2022:
On the marketing side, Charles Taylor have appointed Anne Vigouroux as their Head of Marketing and Adjusting. Anne worked at Barclays for 7 years and in 3 positions, then spent 8 years at JP Morgan. Finally, she spent 7 years at AXA Partners, with her most recent position being Global Commercial Excellence Transformation Manager. Anne began her role with Charles Taylor a few months ago.
HWF Partners have employed Leva Marcinkevičiūtė as their Head of Marketing. Leva joins from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, where she was the Senior Marketing Manager for European Energy and Infrastructure.
There has been much less movement within the sales market, which is quite opposite to the last quarter. One to note is Flock appointing Chantelle Hooper as their Business Development Manager. Chantelle comes from Hoxton Insurance Services, where she was the Head of Broker Sales and Distribution.
Role Profiles
In the insurance industry, we have seen a surprising amount of roles considering the financial concerns within the country. Many insurance companies are set to continue to profit during these times and have grown their businesses this quarter.
In Q3 we noticed an abundance of sales roles. This has taken quite a turn in Q4, where the majority of roles have sat within marketing. Surprisingly, many of these have been growth roles. A number of our clients have or are planning to, run large projects in this space. This varies from re-brands, new teams, new products/websites, restructuring and much more. Due to this, we are seeing senior hires, for people to head up the team or project. Given the nature of these roles, we are seeing a large amount of longer contracts. Based on what we have seen so far, it seems likely that many of these will go permanent due to the increasing need for continued work on these projects.
Furthermore, we have also observed several roles in the Employee Engagement field. It seems many insurance companies are creating and developing their employee workstreams, and it is imperative to make sure this is being communicated internally. These roles tend to be internal communications related, focusing on creating engaging content for several initiatives. To achieve this, other hires must also be made. These roles are primarily content focused, ensuring that the communication is as informative and engaging as possible.
PREDICTIONS
The view looking into 2023 is somewhat mixed amongst our clients. There will be a slight slowdown in comparison to the high volume of recruitment we experienced in Q1 2022, with businesses taking a more cautious approach due to some uncertainty in the market. We expect firms to continue to consolidate their workforce, however, in line with this, we will see new headcount in areas where companies are excelling and see future growth.
We expect to see continued recruitment in specific areas, such as employee communications and digital, across sales and marketing. In marketing, there is a continued push towards more content-led marketing and campaigns across digital platforms. On the sales side, we expect continued growth in the UK and European markets.
From a candidate’s perspective, there is always an appetite to explore the market with a new year ahead. This, in turn with bonuses predicted to be down on last year, will create a more active candidate pool. We anticipate candidate movement in line with this, generating replacement roles within the market.
TEMP & FTC MARKET UPDATE
Q4 has proved an interesting quarter for day rate and fixed-term contract opportunities. As touched upon previously, economic and political instability has been rife in the last three months of 2022 which has displayed some interesting market outcomes on the contingent recruitment side. Pairing this with the government’s back-and-forth announcements about the IR35 legislation – resulting in the April 2021 regulation standing- the quarter proved tumultuous.
There has been a greater willingness at all levels in the business for clients to take candidates on a short-term day-rate basis. The reasoning behind this is that there is less commitment from the client as we enter an uncertain period. They can cover the skills gap in the team without impacting the budget on a long-term basis. As you’d expect, there has been a drop in longer contracts and indeed fixed-term contracts in the last three months of 2022.
Typically, there is an increase in day rate roles as we enter the last few months of the year regardless, as companies scramble to cover a gap over the festive period. Pairing this with the economic situation detailed above, there has certainly been a hike in day rate roles.
Counteracting this, demand does not equal supply in this case. Candidates have proved far more willing to take on permanent opportunities due to the economic downturn and fears over ‘what’s to come’. In general, as we saw in Q3, for contract work money remains a key motivator, and a high day rate proves essential in attracting talent in these times.
Interestingly, the mandates we have been seeing have been a 40/60 split between paternity/maternity covers and replacement hires, rather than the spike in growth hires we saw in Q3. This is a reflection again of the economic uncertainty as people move around to find the best rate, and clients are holding off on their hiring plans.
Overall, Q4 for Sales and Marketing has proved an interesting, if not a slightly anti-climactic quarter. The instability has made people cautious, which means less movement and less hiring, and hopefully, 2023 will bring about interesting mandates and a more settled economic situation.