Financial Services Market Update – May 2020

Last week felt a lot more positive within Financial Services, whilst the market awaits the outcome of plans to release the lockdown, we saw the highest market activity that we have seen since mid-March. It seems that the roles that were put on hold initially in March have been rebooted along with some benchmarking activity. We suspect that FS businesses will start to reanalyse their hiring needs over the coming fortnight, focusing on critical roles and reviewing the longer-term needs. The permanent market seems a lot busier than interim: apart from a number of maternity covers, the roles available are mainly generalist HR Business Partner roles in the £50-75k bracket.

The general feedback in the market has been that L&D, Transformation, OD and Change roles are currently deemed non-essential/luxury hires in the current climate and subsequently have been put on hold or cancelled. The junior-mid level market remains quieter than usual, the feedback has been that only crucial roles are currently being signed off which tend to be viewed as more senior roles/higher salary brackets.

Once businesses establish their return to work contingencies, there should be a need for change, development and culture/wellbeing specialists. The focus seems to have been on direct hiring, where recruitment teams are under pressure to deliver during a period of reduced total live vacancies. Interestingly we have still seen a lot of people who are currently in permanent positions wanting to register their interest in any live vacancies. There does not seem to be any obvious sector trend at the moment, as to be expected from a hiring point of view our clients seem to be airing on the side of caution as a collective.

Lauren Hewlett – Senior Manager, Financial Services

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