Clients call on contractors to fill strategic skills shortages

August 2014 has brought continued good news for the average owner of a contractor limited company, with the most recent Recruitment and Employment Federation (REC) JobsOutlook revealing another rise in contractor demand and contract opportunities.

As also reported on the ContractorCalculator website, client organisations' strategic skills gaps are increasingly being filled by flexible workers due to the lack of suitably qualified permanent employees. However, nine in 10 clients also expressed satisfaction with the quality of the contractors that they hired.

REC CEO Kevin Green commented: "It's clear that skills shortages are affecting the way in which employers use agency workers and increasing numbers are now relying on temporary staff to provide short-term access to strategic skills."

He forecast a continued increase in demand for contractors in line with the growth of the wider economy, given the "increasing" difficulty that firms were encountering in their search for the skilled staff required for the growth of their business.

The report suggested that there could be a shift in the contractor skills profiles required and contract lengths as a result of the focus on recruiting contractors for their strategic skills instead of for capacity management or to cover the absences of permanent staff.

The trend of contractors opting to become employees has also changed somewhat in recent times. Whereas last November, 91 per cent of clients reported seeing at least one of their hired contractors agreeing to become a permanent member of staff, by August 2014, this had fallen to a mere 55 per cent.

The report said of this sharp drop: "Employers' clear articulation of 'short-term access to key strategic skills' is contributing to this shift. Worker preference is also coming into play. Both will be contributors to this trend."

With technical and engineering contractors currently proving the most difficult for clients to source, the JobsOutlook predicted that the professional and managerial sector would be affected by similar skilled candidate shortages by 2014's third quarter.

Engineering, professional and sales personnel contractors are all expected to be in higher demand in the coming months, with the report recommending that contractors seeking work target large businesses, given their status as the most extensive users of contractors. In that regard, they were followed by small companies, and finally medium-sized firms.

Editor’s Note: SAIL Business Solutions (http://www.sailsolutions.co.uk) are represented by the search engine advertising and digital marketing specialists Jumping Spider Media. Email: info@jumpingspidermedia.co.uk or call: +44 (0)20 3070 1959 / +34 952 783 637.