October 2023 market overview

Stable vacancy volume across financial services and commerce and industry 

Across the UK’s commerce and industry and financial services sectors, we’ve pulled together all the live vacancies we’ve had in October 2023 across London, Home Counties, West Midlands and South West England.

“The volume of vacancies was very similar to that of 2022.” 

At the start of Q4 we typically see an uplift in vacancies. At Frazer Jones, October was a strong month across commerce and industry as well as financial services. The volume of vacancies was very similar to that of 2022.  

“38% of roles have come from asset management in the financial services space.”  

Across the commerce and industry space, recruitment activity within technology, manufacturing, consumer and education has been high throughout 2023 and throughout October this trend continued, taking 10-12% of the market share. Across the financial services space in 2023, 38% of roles have come from asset management, with insurance coming in at 15% and fintech at 10%. 

Nearly a quarter of hiring within commerce and industry was in reward and benefits  

“The largest area was generalist roles at 33%, closely followed by reward and benefits at 24% of hiring.” 

Looking at where vacancy volume landed over October, from a commerce and industry perspective, there was a much more even split across education, IT, energy, oil and gas and retail, which all took between 10-14% of market share. We saw an uplift in employee relations roles, with 10% of the roles sitting in this space. The largest area was generalist roles at 33%, closely followed by reward and benefits at 24%. HR analytics saw a number of new roles, coming in at 14%.  

Half of the roles in financial services were in asset management  

In financial services, 50% of vacancies were in asset management. A high 36% of vacancies were in the payroll space, followed by generalist at 29% and HRIS and analytics at 14%.  

Hiring plans are at the top of business agendas 

“We witnessed confidence in the executive level market, with a few GBP 250,000 package opportunities on offer.” 

We witnessed confidence in the executive-level market, with a few GBP 250,000 package opportunities on offer. The majority of roles were at the mid-level, as we would expect to see given these areas have higher volumes of employees in their teams. 

Sentiment across our clients seems positive, with many businesses discussing hiring plans for Q1. Usually, we tend to see a flurry of last-minute roles come through in November before the end of year slow down and break up at the end of December.  

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