Vacancies continue to outnumber suitably qualified candidates.

Having come through a turbulent bonus season with poor performance from some banking groups, the market for corporate governance staff accelerated markedly in Q2. So the challenge remains for many Financial Services companies to secure and retain qualified and experienced staff that feel ‘the grass might be greener’ elsewhere.

As we enter the traditionally quiet summer period, the long-term signals are that recruitment volumes will remain high with strong demand for business audit candidates with front office product knowledge and Solvency II experience.

Technology Audit has seen more of an infrastructure bias in terms of client requirements in the first half of the year, however, we anticipate strong applications knowledge will come into focus for many hiring companies later on.

Despite the lack of roles at the start of the year and the relatively low recruitment levels in other market areas still being in evidence, the corporate governance market has remained resilient. Crucially, this implies that hiring companies are still keen to focus on developing the controls and risk arenas to ensure stability for future growth. We expect this current situation to continue throughout Q3.