c show that accountant vacancies saw over 14,500 new professional vacancies in Commerce and Industry (C&I) across England and Wales in 2022. This constitutes a year-on-year growth of 20% from 2021.
Within Financial Services, jobs for accountants also had a notable upturn in performance throughout 2022, publishing over 6,500 vacancies and seeing a 20.4% year-on-year increase as a result.
A quarterly analysis of our data confirmed that during Q1, C&I vacancies reached their 2022 peak, exceeding 3,800 postings. Meanwhile, for Financial Services, this occurred in Q3, where there were over 1,800 new accountant jobs.
Bex Pearce, Commercial Director, Morgan McKinley said, “Quality and committed candidates still remain the biggest challenge when recruiting for clients, and this was represented in Morgan McKinley’s recent salary survey for 2023 – 56% of candidates surveyed would consider looking for a new role within the first six months of 2023, compared to 84% in 2022.
“The return to companies looking for the ‘perfect’ candidate has been a key focus this year so far. Businesses are not prepared to compromise as much as last year, which in turn is elongating the recruitment process and organisations are, at times, losing quality talent to competitors who have the ability to move at pace.
“Thoughtful and structured recruitment processes are a huge contributor to successful hiring at all levels and to ensure the bring in the right talent.”
Retail led the way across sectors as Industrials/Engineering records the highest yearly rise
At over 4,400 accountant vacancies, Retail made up the bulk of the new jobs within Financial Services and C&I, experiencing a surge of 18% compared to 2021. Despite having the biggest volumes of vacancies, there was a notable year-on-year decrease of 67.9% from 2021.
However, the fastest growth across sectors was experienced by Industrials/Engineering, with hiring volumes up 45.5% year-on-year. This surpassed 1,000 vacancies published for the first time since 2020, when overall vacancies suffered a slowdown, arguably due to the pandemic.
Greater London accounts for 47.2% of UK hiring as job volumes grow fastest in Yorkshire and the Humber
Regionally, London was once again top of the charts as the largest hub for accountant vacancies in 2022, publishing almost 10,000 vacancies and registering a yearly growth of 20.2% compared to 2021. The capital accounted for nearly 47.2% of all hiring activity.
The South East took the runner-up spot achieving almost 2,800 new jobs, up 20.8% year-on-year. However, the fastest-growing region in 2022 was Yorkshire and the Humber, with recruitment at 42.2% of last year’s totals (and over a thousand published vacancies).
Barclays, JPMorgan Chase and Amazon were the busiest recruiters in 2022
A deeper dive across the top firms within Financial Services and C&I hiring accountant professionals shows that Barclays was the leading firm in 2022, registering a year-on-year increase of 85.7% from 2021 with almost 300 new jobs.
JPMorgan Chase came second, almost equalling Barclays in terms of volumes, although its year-on-year rise compared to 2021 was somewhat lower (up 22.5%). The technology sector ranked third with Amazon, experiencing a year-on-year growth of 27.3% compared to 2021.
Interestingly, Kier Group, the only Real Estate & Construction firm featured in the list, posted the highest growth across all firms, an incredible 318.6% increase from 2021.
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