BSA 2024 Legal Salary Guide v3 SPREADS - Flipbook - Side 4
04
Permanent recruitment trends
It was a year of highs and lows for the in-house
legal and company secretarial (CoSec) recruitment
market in 2023. The strong demand that characterised 2021 and 2022 spilled over into the 昀椀rst half
of the year, but this was offset by hiring activity
tailing off signi昀椀cantly as 2023 progressed.
“Legal and CoSec recruitment remained very
busy until the midway point of last year,” says
Tom Boulderstone, Head of Legal and CoSec
at Barclay Simpson.
“We are still seeing pockets of activity across
certain sectors, disciplines and skillsets, but overall
the market is quieter now than it has been for quite
some time.”
Insurance 昀椀rms and 昀椀ntechs are bucking the trend,
with in-house legal hiring staying relatively buoyant
across these industries. Trade 昀椀nance specialists
and those with strong fund structuring experience
also continue to be highly sought-after due to skills
shortages in these areas.
A decrease in M&A activity last year had a
detrimental effect on hiring within the space,
with private practice teams having already hired
heavily in 2022. However, private equity and
venture capital – especially at the early stage
of investment – remained reasonably busy.
On the whole, the CoSec space has held up slightly
better than in-house legal recruitment, with 昀椀rms
still looking to bolster their teams with growth hires.
Most departments have commented on the need
to add resources to ensure they can create more
value rather than simply supporting boards and
committees, which has become the primary focus
due to a lack of resources.
Meanwhile, 昀椀nding suitable in-house legal and
CoSec candidates remains an ongoing challenge
for employers. All of the organisations that we
polled acknowledged some degree of dif昀椀culty
in securing skilled talent in the current landscape,
with approximately a quarter (24%) considering
it ‘very challenging’.
66% of employers
intend to hire
additional permanent
staff in 2024
Within in-house legal jobs speci昀椀cally, a signi昀椀cant
factor impeding recruitment has been the sustained
increases in private practice starting salaries over
recent years. This has disrupted both in-house salary
expectations and the talent supply pipeline, a trend
that we will discuss in more detail later in this report.
Against this backdrop, remuneration continues
to be the biggest obstacle for employers hiring in
the current market. However, the percentage of
organisations citing salary demands as an issue
dropped from 80% to 71% between 2022 and 2023.
Conversely, there was a notable increase in
employers identifying a lack of technical or
regulatory knowledge among candidates
(52% versus 43% in 2022). Remote working policies
are also a growing problem during the recruitment
process. This issue was cited by 24% of employers
in 2023 – nearly double the previous year.
