Interestingly, we are currently seeing more demand in certain specialist areas than we did at the start of the year. In particular, diversity, employee engagement and change management professionals have been recruited lately.

This is a particularly significant development as it is indicative of increased market confidence. Previously, firms did not consider strengthening these parts of their HR function a priority.

Compensation and benefits specialists have also been sought-after by financial services organisations, although the driving factor behind this has changed since the start of the year. Whereas previously the focus was on compliance with FSA regulations, firms were instead hiring these individuals to help them implement a strategy that would enable them to manage their performance through pay.

However, high-calibre compensation and benefits specialists have now been in demand for a number of months and this has led to a shortage of sufficiently-skilled people for these jobs.

While graduate recruiters were highly sought-after at the start of the year, firms are now more interested in hiring for more general recruitment roles than they were previously. This is an encouraging development as it shows that companies were looking to grow and gain market share.

We're also seeing continued significant demand for HR generalists as firms seek professionals who are able to carry out a variety of HR tasks. However, specific niche skill sets – such as front office experience within a financial services firm for example - are still sought-after.

Within large commercial businesses, experienced HR shared services and HR operations professionals are also sought-after at all levels as these employers either look to set up new or build on existing functions. Generally employers are now keener to hire at the junior level than they were last year, which demonstrated a greater desire to invest in the future by training on a long-term basis.

With the majority of firms unwilling to compromise on desired skill sets and experience, competition for the best people remains intense. High-calibre HR professionals looking for new roles are still receiving multiple job offers and/or aggressive buy-backs from their existing employers.

As ever, firms with streamlined recruitment processes are securing the most talented professionals.

With recruitment volumes increasing and HR hiring typically peaking in September and November, we expect market conditions to continue to improve.

We expect reward professionals and HR specialists with financial services or professional services experience to be particularly highly sought-after. HR generalists, recruitment specialists and HR operations professionals are also likely to remain in demand.

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