Back to belfasttelegraph.co.uk
| 7.2°C Belfast
Menu Sections
Menu Sections
Premium subscribers enjoy unlimited access to all articles. But there’s more: discover your full benefits now.
Close
John Moore
/
John Moore
At this time of year, we normally take stock of the year that’s just ended and look at the trends in the recruitment market in order to forecast what might lie ahead in the next 12 months.
To anyone tracking the jobs market, it will come as no surprise when I say that salaries have continued to rise over the past 12 months, fuelled by a combination of the inflation-driven cost of living crisis and talent shortages in a number of sectors where demand is strongest.
But for the most in-demand roles, employers are willing to increase pay by 10%-20% in order to retain the best talent, particularly in some specialist roles.
Although the pace of hiring we saw in the first half of 2022 has calmed slightly, employers are still going over and above to attract the staff they need to grow and navigate the challenges ahead. It is an upward trend that is expected to carry on well into 2023.
Each year in compiling our Hays Salary & Recruiting Trends guide, we analyse over 10,000 salaries using information gathered from our offices across the UK, based on job listings, job offers and candidate registrations. If you combine this with our survey which forms part of the guide, which this year received over 13,500 responses, it’s a comprehensive picture of salaries, recruiting trends and insights.
According to our guide, salaries across the UK increased by 5.4%, and while that might seem quite muted, it was well above the 2.8% we saw in 2021 and 1.2% the year before that. In Northern Ireland, the data showed that the average salary increase was slightly higher at 5.6%.
Unlike other years, where salary increases are largely reflective of the demand for staff, this year the rise in inflation and the cost of living has meant that employers are working harder than ever to ensure their salaries meet market expectations.
Margaret Canning’s selection of the must-read business stories straight to your inbox every Tuesday morning
This field is required
Looking to our survey data, 83% of employers told us they had increased their employees’ salaries or rates of pay over the last 12 months compared to just 57% who did so the year before. Over half (54%) said this was not only to retain staff but was a direct result of the rise in the cost of living. Additionally, a greater proportion of employers offered staff a performance-related bonus this year (58%) compared to last year (42%).
The list of the top twenty salary increases from 2022 provides a good indication of where we are seeing the most demand for staff at the moment.
In Northern Ireland, of the 20 roles which received the highest percentage increases, six were in engineering, four were in technology, three were in marketing and communications, three were in legal, two were in HR, one in production, supply chain & logistics and one in business support.
This compares to a UK-wide report which was also dominated by technology and engineering, with seven of the roles with the highest salary increases in technology and five in engineering. Life sciences also made a strong appearance in the UK-wide survey, with three of the roles in the top 20 list.
In Northern Ireland, electrical computer-aided design technicians and cyber security analysts saw a salary increase of 26.7%, the highest increase, followed by marketing analysts and PR managers who saw an increase of 25%. Other job roles which experienced above average increases included import/export administrators (20%), heads of legal (18.2%) and heads of talent/resourcing (17%).
In the UK-wide analysis, salesforce solutions architects saw an increase of 18.5%, the highest increase within the top 20, while systems design engineers saw an increase of 18.2%. Three of the top twenty UK salary rises were for life sciences roles, receiving increases above 11.9%.
Despite wider economic uncertainty, four out of five employers across the UK, and 85% of those surveyed in NI, said they intend on hiring staff over the next 12 months.
It’s really important, therefore, for employers and hiring managers alike to be aware that salary isn’t everything when attracting and retaining professionals.
Although a competitive salary is clearly a good way to attract and maintain talent, we are increasingly seeing employees caring about other factors such as career progression, wellbeing, work life balance and hybrid working. People are also motivated to work for organisations who prioritise social responsibility so we would encourage employers not to neglect these areas.
John Moore is managing director, Hays NI
The Belfast Telegraph is a member of IPSO and subscribes to its Editors’ Code of Practice Ipso
A Mediahuis Website © BelfastTelegraph.co.uk