Salary Survey Update by Executive Director, Lee Sweeney

​What an interesting year 2023 was, characterised by a rather stop/start roller coaster ride as market sentiment waxed and waned.

The rarely seen before salary rises of 2022, driven by climbing inflation and a continued shortage in supply of skilled and talented people began to slow in 2023. A degree of normality returned, though not entirely as supply still fell short of demand (though by a narrowing gap) and inflation, though falling, remained stubbornly high, as did interest rates.

Turning to 2024, what can we expect? Q1 saw a distinct pick up in demand for finance staff at all levels. Inflation fell further, interest rates appear to have peaked and the belief is that they will drop and economic growth of 0.6% in the quarter finally rid us of the word ‘recession’.

The push by employers to return employees to a greater degree of office-based working (as opposed to home based) has continued. Employers seem to have found their confidence to push this issue a little further; anecdotally with many reporting a drop in output if the split is too biased towards home. Hybrid/flexible working continues to be a hot topic.

"The quiet period that was the last half of 2023 is now well behind us"

Historically, the M&A market (mergers and acquisitions) has often proved a foreteller of things to come. When that market goes quiet, usually a drop in demand for any type of finance staff follows within the next quarter or two and the opposite is true. This is probably because M&A is often closely associated with how strong business’ sentiment and confidence is. Currently, and again anecdotally, despite some evidence that might appear to the contrary (e.g. Deloitte withdrawing from the regional M&A mid- market in early 2024 and making their teams redundant) M&A advisors, transactional lenders and investors in the north have been reporting a sudden jump in WIP. So have we and as the largest independent, dedicated accountancy and finance recruitment business in Yorkshire we have a very strong sample pool.

Now comes the hard part where I stare into my crystal ball and try and predict the future; here goes: The quiet period that was the last half of 2023 is now well behind us. We have falling inflation, we expect falling interest rates, we have economic growth, and we expect more of it (though not at high levels), we have seen a real uptick in vacancies and as mentioned in the previous paragraph, M&A WIP appears to be building. I believe we will see a strong 2nd half of 2024 which whilst not rivalling 2022 will most likely be well ahead of pre-pandemic levels of 2019.

What does this mean for employers? Even last year demand never fell behind supply, the gap simply narrowed. That gap will probably widen again. When you hire you will need to be on your mettle. Salaries and benefits well need to be competitive. Flexibility (like hybrid working) will remain high on many people’s agenda and if you don’t offer any, hiring the best people will be much more difficult. Processes will need to be slick and proficient; they will also need to be quick. It will remain a seller’s market and you will have competition for anyone with skill and talent.

Lee Sweeney is Executive Director at Sharp Consultancy and advises major accounting practices, venture capitalists and banks in the North of England on the appointment of senior finance professionals; contact Lee on 0113 236 6300.