A recent analysis by Vacancysoft of the legal jobs markets in 2014 and 2015 revealed a few trends. The comparison was between European roles and Asia Pacific roles. But the European roles, including those from the UK, showed a few distinct patterns.
Overall the number of legal jobs in 2015 available in Europe was up on 2014, almost double. The trend over 2015 was an increase but only a moderate increase, 5%.
There were spikes in terms of vacancies being released. January – the new year, April -the new financial year are fairly self-explanatory. Then a spike in Jun 2014 and July 2015 following a similar pattern. In July 2015 the market reached the highest peak for the entire year. Interestingly in 2014 there was also a spike in November, which was the height of the market in 2014, but last year that did not happen. There was almost a flat line between August 2015 and November 2015.
This reflects our experience here in the local market. The year 2015 was definitely busier than 2014. There were influxes of roles in January, April and July with autumn being surprisingly flat. But this meant that opportunities tended to be there throughout the year. Less of a feast or famine, great news for you if you were looking for a role, often not at a time of your choosing.
Locally redundancies have been almost unheard of this year for qualified legal professionals and the good firms seem to be happy ships. If yours is not then there is lots of scope in 2016 to progress your career at a firm with a positive outlook!
