Vacancy growth accelerates for accounting & financial staff

The Report on Jobs, published by KPMG and the REC, indicated a sharp increase in demand for permanent workers in accounting and finance roles in January.

The seasonally adjusted Permanent Vacancies Index for accounting & financial roles rose to an 11-month high of 56.7 in January, up from 52.5 in December. As a result, the sector moved to the top of the job category rankings, ahead of engineering. Meanwhile, the UK as a whole saw the fastest increase in permanent vacancies since last March (54.8).

In line with permanent vacancies, the accounting & financial sector recorded a much quicker rise in temporary staff demand during January. The respective seasonally adjusted index climbed to 54.1, from 50.9 in December, to indicate a solid upturn in temp vacancies that was broadly in line with the series trend. The sector also outpaced the national average (53.1) and placed joint-third in the job category rankings.

Karim Haji, head of financial services, KPMG UK comments: “It’s clear that on the jobs front, financial services continues to serve the UK well outpacing the national average for both permanent and temporary vacancies. Like the sector as a whole, finance functions are undergoing rapid change as new technologies change the way they operate. The UK’s most profitable firms expect between 21% and 50% of the finance workforce to be significantly impacted by automation in the next two years. That doesn’t mean it will lose half of its workers, only that those jobs will become more analytical and dare I say, interesting, as a lot of the manual labour is automated.”

The full report and historical data from the Report on Jobs are available by subscription. Please contact economics@ihsmarkit.com.