Marketing contracts and jobs predicted to grow by 30,000 by end 2013
The number of marketing contracts and jobs are predicted to grow by 29,162 by the end of 2013, according to marketing recruiter EMR’s Salary & Market Trend Report 2012-2013. A further 18,500 new marketing contracts and jobs have already been created this year, with two in five marketing departments increasing headcount by at least one during 2012. The report also highlights that the use of interim marketers has increased significantly as clients ramp-up marketing capacity. More...
Contract bonanza forecast for oil and gas contractors
A surge in new contracts for oil and gas contractors is forecast following news of two major North Sea projects going ahead. Shell has received consent from the Department of Energy and Climate Change to develop its Fram field, which will add 2% to the UK’s daily production. And BBC News reports that Talisman is redeveloping a number of its fields in the North Sea, an initiative expected to lead to over 2,000 new contracts and jobs.
Skills shortages driving up demand for oil and gas contractors
Oil and gas contractors are in high demand as skills shortages mean “competition for talent in Europe is fierce”. This is according to the latest Hays Oil & Gas Job Index, which also highlights that confidence in the UK’s oil and gas sector is at an all-time high. “Job postings in Europe followed global demand, and thus we saw a plateau in July and August followed by a rise in September back to peak levels,” said the report. It also flags concerns that the workforce is ageing and that “a high proportion of talent [will] retire over the next 10 to 15 years”. More...
Social, mobile, cloud and information to dominate technology trends in 2013
IT contractors keen to keep their skills up to date with market trends should be looking at social, mobile, cloud and information technologies. Technology analyst Gartner’s new Technology Trends for 2013 report highlight the areas of greatest strategic importance to enterprises over the next three years. The prediction that mobile devices will overtake PCs as the most common web access device, and only 20% of these will be Windows devices, is likely to have a profound impact on the future skills requirement of clients from their IT contractors. More...
Contractors value recruiters for client inside knowledge, but also want market expertise
Contractors value recruiters most for their inside knowledge on available assignments, but 55% want agencies to better understand what they do and stop forwarding unsuitable appointments. New research by Pulse Umbrella and Accounting Group also shows contractor dissatisfaction levels with agents are high, as only 5% always find them helpful and 57% sometimes finding them helpful. Even more worrying is that 24% of contractors want recruiters to “tell fewer mistruths”. More...
Manufacturing contractor prospects positive for the current quarter
Contractors working on or seeking assignments in the UK manufacturing sector may have had a tough time over the last six months, but their prospects are looking positive to the end of the year. The Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) quarterly Industrial Trends Survey shows that orders fell and output was flat in the three months to October, but that orders and output are expected to grow between October and December. The report also shows that “numbers employed rose for the ninth-consecutive quarter (+5%), the longest run of rising headcount in the quarterly survey’s history, since 1972”. More...
Contractors warned about ‘zombie’ SME and Northern-based clients
Contractors working for small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and businesses in the North of England have been warned to check their credit worthiness before accepting contracts, and to be vigilant for late payments. The latest Begbie Traynor Red Flag Alert research shows “a starkly divided nation, with marked increases in financial distress amongst businesses based in the North and SMEs”. Southern based and larger companies “have shown marked improvements in financial health”. More...
Contractors should review sports sponsorships following tax tribunal ruling
Contractors who sponsor local sports teams and benefit from corporation tax relief as a result may wish to review their arrangements following a recent tax tribunal ruling. AccountingWeb’s Nick Huber’s report on the Interfish v HMRC sports sponsorship case, which highlights that sponsorship must be ‘wholly and exclusively for the purposes of trade’. Sponsorship should benefit a contractor’s business and not the contractor personally, otherwise it may suffer from ‘duality of purpose’ and be disallowed by HMRC. More...
Contractors to benefit from timesheet finance firm’s new partnerships
Contractor clients of timesheet finance firm UC Finance will benefit from strategic partnerships secured with service providers and media players in the contracting sector. ContractorCalculator, Jobs4Contractors, Qdos Consulting, FreeAgent, Crunch, Contractor Weekly, Contractor Mortgages, FW Accounting, Professional Passport and Honestly Accounting have all become UC Finance partners to provide contractors with “a destination hub to explore and engage with trustworthy financial services industry providers”.