Contractors with key strategic skills and technical and engineering contractors look set to have the most contract opportunities over the next 12 months.
August 2014’s Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) JobsOutlook shows that 82% of clients use contractors “to provide short-term access to key strategic skills”, which according to the REC is currently “the dominant reason for accessing” contractors.
And one in four clients is predicting a shortage of contractor candidates in the engineering and technical sector. Clients are also concerned about the availability of professional and managerial skills.
“The latest JobsOutlook highlights once again the value of the contracting sector to UK plc,” notes ContractorCalculator CEO Dave Chaplin. “Contractors are not disguised employees, but a valuable resource of strategic skills that are called upon on an as needed basis by clients who don’t need or can’t afford these skills full-time.”
Clients are continuing to call on the services of contractors, with 43% of hirers planning to increase contractor headcounts over the next three months. Over the medium term, 44% of clients intend to add to their contracting workforces in the next 4-12 months.
Large organisations are the largest consumers of contractor services, but an increasing number of micro, small and medium-sized clients “have registered their intent to hire which will present challenges in sourcing candidates”.
Having such broad-based demand can only improve contractor prospects, and is likely to have a positive impact on rates. The report highlights that: “With access to key strategic skills being the battleground, hirers will increasingly have to re-consider the attractiveness of their offering to agency workers.”
Over a third of clients now have no spare capacity to cope with any new work, up from a quarter at the beginning of 2014. This suggests that clients will increasingly turn to the flexible workforce to assist with capacity management, as wells as access to strategic skills.
The number of contractors turning into permanent employees has also fallen for the eighth consecutive month. The term-to-perm numbers may be falling because more contractors are settling on contracting as a long-term career option.
Or, as the JobsOutlook highlights, it could be “the desire for short-term rather than permanent access to key strategic skills” that has reduced client pressure on contractors to choose employment.