Demand for Highly Skilled Professional Workers is Much Stronger than Rest of UK Labour Market

According to research carried out by the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo), the demand for highly skilled professional workers is significantly stronger than the demand for workers across the UK labour market.

The UK’s leading provider of real-time labour market intelligence, Innovantage, revealed research that permanent vacancies for highly skilled professional workers are up 7% compared to permanent vacancies for all workers up 4%.

213,316 permanent jobs for highly skilled professional workers were advertised on job boards in April 2011, compared to 200,056 in April 2010.

The research shows that despite slow economic growth, highly skilled candidates with professional qualifications are doing a lot better in the labour market than those with lower value skills.

Ann Swain, Chief Executive of APSCo, said: “While the number of highly skilled professional-level permanent jobs being advertised is up 7% compared to last April, the jobs market as whole is considerably more sluggish.”

John Nurthen of Staffing Industry Analysts comments: “The UK is increasingly becoming a highly skilled economy – low value, low skilled jobs are under constant attack from lower cost overseas competitors.”

“Commentators have been talking about a two-speed recovery. These figures seem to underline just how divergent demand for skills is across the economy. Some sectors – such as legal – are still struggling while engineering and manufacturing jobs are up 14% on the back of export-led growth.”

Source Danbro