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From the 5th Birthday issue of MRWho, December 2003 - to be updated June 2004

What candidates want:

MrWeb's active jobseeker registrations passed the 3,000 mark sometime in November, and as of 11th December there were 3,110 signed up to receive our emails of relevant vacancies. It's good to see that the turnover is up - far more people are signing up and a good number are signing off having found work.

4% are looking for temporary work only and 37% either perm or temp, leaving 59% looking for permanent only - very similar to previous figures. The following stats are based on the 2,990 who are looking for permanent work or either. 25% of jobseekers select 'Any' location. Only a modest proportion (10%) are now going for the new option of 'UK only' indicating that most researchers have a willingness to travel abroad or at least an interest in overseas posts. As previously, around 53% will consider jobs in Central London and 48% in each of the other London regions. The home counties are increasingly popular, as are other parts of the UK outside London. 14% (up from 11% 6 months ago) will consider Kent and 16% (up from 14%) will look at jobs in Surrey - most of the other home counties lie in between these figures.

 


Salary Selections
(total 1574 not selecting 'Any')
  Salary Range Number who
will consider
  < £20k 334
  £20-24.9k 751
  £25-29.9k 1037
  £30-34.9k 891
  £35-39.9k 991
  £40-49.9k 409
  £50-59.9k 300
  £60-69.9k 221
  £70-79.9k 233
  £80k+ 248


Jobs in other parts of the UK have seen a rise in interest - Manchester is just in the lead with 12% (up from 10%), closely followed by SW England and the West Midlands (both 11% up from 9%), Southern England, Scotland, Yorkshire and Oxfordshire (generally up from 6-7% to 8-10% of jobseekers). This is a significant rise versus one year ago as June 2003 figures were already up. Possible explanations include the broadening of our net, the success of several out-of-London agencies and - probably the best - the fact that with a slight pick-up in prospects non-SE jobseekers are less nervous about looking around.

The UK industry is still very London-centric and SE-centric and London jobseekers seemingly remained more confident of finding positions throughout the recession. A lot of Australian and American jobseekers have signed up lately.

The % considering Aus has doubled to 8% and the US has also doubled, to 6% - these are now well ahead of other overseas locations, which are headed by Ireland (4%) then Asia (3%) and other European countries (many considered by 2%).

Candidates are making better use of the 'level/function' selection (61% making a choice rather than selecting 'Any' - up 4%) - good to see as it's not included on other sites and requires some effort to code/ standardise codes each evening.

 


Level/Function Sought
(base: 1822 not selecting 'Any')
  Level or
Function
% selecting
  Field 19
  IT / DP 17
  JRE 27
  RE 27
  SRE 21
  PM 19
  RM 24
  AD 14
  Dir 11
  Other /stats 12
  Analyst 4
  Kn. Manager 2


The more ups and downs in salaries, the more call there seems to be for another way of selecting seniority. There has been a slight shift away from exec side jobseekers in the standard positions from RE up to Director, and an increase in people seeking field jobs, IT and DP, and the new categories of Analyst and Knowledge Manager (numbers considering these last two are still small but now significant). Perhaps related to the timing of the academic year, there are slightly more looking at JRE/Entry level jobs now than there were in Jan to June.

The number considering jobs in each salary bracket has risen by about 10% - slightly more (13-16%) for the higher salaries (£50k+) which ties in with our ongoing promotion of senior vacancies through MRWho and the gradual rise through the ranks of some of our regular users - it also mirrors some recent reports of high level placements from advertisers.