Rebounding Jobs Market Bodes Well for UK MR

The new year has started brightly for the UK research jobs market, usually a reliable lead indicator of the industry's health, according to specialist recruiters and DRNO sponsors Pricejamieson. Record audiences and large numbers of job postings on the MrWeb site bear out the optimism.

By most reckonings, 2003 was a difficult year for the market research industry. Budgets were cut, redundancies were made and there was a general feeling of gloom. 2004 looks brighter so far, according to Pricejamieson. Many companies and agencies are taking on additional people, not just replacing headcount but to deal with the additional volume of business. Agencies are taking the opportunity to diversify their business, establishing new sectors and divisions in order to meet client needs.

The number of new jobs registered at Pricejamieson in January 2004 was up by 20% over the corresponding period in 2003. It's more difficult to make year-on-year comparisons with MrWeb stats - our vacancy postings are up by more than 40% but this represents taking on some major regular advertisers in the course of 2003, and a boom in site traffic. For the record, more than 330 UK vacancies were posted on MrWeb in January and 121 so far in 6 working days of February, while the mean of around 10,000 pages viewed every day is approximately double the figure for last January.

According to Andrew Swift, Joint Managing Director of Pricejamieson, the good news for companies hiring is the significant increase in the number of candidates looking for a new role, reflecting increased confidence in the market. 'It's been an extremely encouraging start to the year. It's still early days but we're seeing steady, marked signs of improvement and we expect this to continue throughout 2004. It's a perfect time for those looking for a new career move as there are a number of new opportunities out there, both agency and clientside'.

Detailed figures for vacancy numbers and mean salaries for the second half of 2003 will be published in MRWho in two weeks' time (see www.mrweb.com/who ). Salary and vacancy statistics and commentary can be viewed any time via a link on the new DRNO home page, left hand column ( www.drno.org ).

The main MrWeb jobs page is at www.mrweb.com/vacs . Pricejamieson's Web site is at www.pricejam.com

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.