Gareth Tomkins Summer 2024 Update

Linear Recruitment's Managing Director Gareth Tomkins Update

As always everyone at Linear has been extremely busy and productive and I would say working harder than ever before as we, along with most businesses in many sectors, grapple with an “extremely testing” business environment. The first half of 2024 has been very challenging from a business perspective. At the back end of last year we were anticipating an improvement in market conditions and primarily in the construction industry, as such we based our 2024 forecasts on this assumption. However the construction industry started very sluggish. According to the ONS, overall construction output showed a 2% decrease on the previous year. The industry has seen a decrease in planning approvals, a decrease in main contract awards and a decline in project starts against 2023 levels.

In the jobs market overall, employers appear to have had their foot on the brakes when it comes to recruitment with the general election period in particular causing some uncertainty. Permanent hiring particularly has taken a hit as companies have delayed making hiring decisions.

However here at Linear we have bucked the trend a little when it comes to permanent recruitment. Although we are not at the forecasted levels our billings are 12% up in 2024 compared to the first half of 2023.

Towards the back end of the first six months of 2024 we have seen some extremely encouraging signs that the sectors we work in and the jobs market have now turned the corner. In just the last seven weeks our billings have increased by 30% and our pipeline going forward is very positive. Our Rail|Power|Infrastructure division in particular has seen a spectacular increase in business in both temporary and permanent fees and the future is extremely exciting. A lot of the upturn in business is also of course down to our amazingly-dedicated and hard working staff who as I previously mentioned have been worker harder than ever before.

Going forward, now a new government has been elected and inflationary pressures have eased we are absolutely seeing clients unlock their recruitment investment and in general it looks like we are moving towards a better economic outlook for the second half of 2024.

Our Industrial and Engineering division continues to perform very well and this is one of the areas that we have plans to invest in. To start the process we are currently recruiting for a new Branch Manager/Managing Consultant for our Sheffield office with big plans in place to build on what we already have.

We have also gone through a big change this year as we have moved our Sheffield office/Head office into a new home. Paradise Square was our home for the last twelve years but we decided to move the office into a more modern, vibrant environment in St James House. The move has gone down very well with the Sheffield staff and the future for the team in Sheffield is very exciting. And again this is an area that we plan to invest in with new staff across all divisions in the office.

As well as plans to invest in additions to our amazing teams we are always looking at how we can improve how we work and so increase productivity, whilst also improving client and candidate user experience when they are working with Linear. On the back of the new CRM that we implemented last year we are now investing in our website that works in tandem with the new CRM, so please look out for this once it is released.

As well as looking out for our new website we also plan to release our 2024 salary surveys for the Construction and Architecture sectors, so please keep a lookout for these in the second half of the year. These have been extremely well-received in previous years and will be distributed to all our contacts.

Finally, I do hope you enjoy the newsletter and find it informative. If you require any further information or advice please feel free to contact one of our offices.