The contracting market in Scotland softened during January 2015, with the rest of the UK offering greater contract opportunities. This is in marked contrast to much of 2014, when Scotland’s contracting sector consistently outperformed most of the rest of the UK. As a result, contractors based in Scotland may wish to consider target contracts elsewhere in the UK.
The latest Bank of Scotland Report on Jobs for January 2015 also shows that agency billings fell for the first time since 2008, ending a period of growth lasting two-and-a-half-years. Pay rate growth also flattened, and vacancy growth was at its weakest since May 2013.
“Scotland’s jobs market continued to improve in January but showed signs of cooling,” highlights Bank of Scotland chief economist Donald MacRae. “The number of people appointed to permanent jobs rose but temporary appointments fell.”
According to ContractorCalculator CEO Dave Chaplin, the dynamics of Scotland’s contract market make its performance dependent on several key industries: “Scotland hosts three centres of excellence: oil and gas in Aberdeen, video games in Dundee and financial services in Edinburgh. There is also a strong but more dispersed engineering presence, with pockets particularly of renewables activity around Glasgow.
“Financial services performed well during January, with Edinburgh continuing to suffer from a candidate shortage. Gaming is also performing well, as pay shot up in Dundee. But the oil and gas sector is slowing alongside the falling oil price. This will weigh heavily on Scotland’s contracting sector’s overall performance.”
A further signal of Scotland’s contracting slowdown was that the interim market slipped into negative growth territory. This sector traditionally performs poorly when compared to the broader UK, but demand actually fell in the executive and professional category during January, the only contracting discipline to do so.
IT and computing was second place in the demand league table followed by engineering and construction and accounts and financial was in fifth place. Although still growing, each of these sectors experienced a slowdown of activity between December 2014 and January 2015.
MacRae concludes: “This Report on Jobs suggests the Scottish economy continues to grow at the start of 2015 but at a slower rate than the end of last year.”