What sectors are growing? The UK treasury recruitment market | Q2 2024

Q2 Treasury vacancies

With the UK election now out of the way and a change in government we are expecting to see a steadier and more buoyant recruitment market as we continue into the second half of 2024.  Hopefully this is coupled with higher levels of growth and interest rates starting to come down.  This should mean we start to see higher levels of investment occur within the economy and conditions become slightly easier to navigate for many treasury departments than they have been over the last 2+ years.  Overall, it looks like we are moving into a much more positive outlook.

We have seen this positivity already start to creep into the treasury recruitment market. Over the last six months, there has been a clear uplift in roles that centre around transformation of a treasury department.  This is a very good sign for the market as businesses are investing in their functions and allowing them to catch up to where they need to be.  Comparing this to the previous three years, many businesses were unsure of where the market was going and so cut back on any excess spending, which included new systems and sometimes extra headcount.

Financial services as a whole is another area that was badly hit over the last couple of years, however we are seeing very positive signs that this has turned a corner.  Over the last quarter we have seen a big uptick for demand within insurance, which increased from 3% to 10% of our vacancies and fintech where we saw a 3% increase. FMCG was our biggest growing sector last quarter and we saw an increase in live roles of 17%.

Overall, it looks like we are moving into a much more positive outlook.

Many treasury departments have been busier than ever over the last three or four years, first through the complexities of Covid and then through the high interest and high inflation economy we had over the last two years.  Hopefully as this eases, treasury functions can start to look ahead at opportunities that will develop their function from new processes to new systems or complete transformations that maybe the market and businesses haven’t allowed for recently.

Brewer Morris treasury news

The Brewer Morris treasury team hosted a great Women in Treasury networking breakfast in June, where we had Assistant Treasurers, Deputy Treasurers, and Group Treasurers all in attendance.  We were also at the ACT Conference in May, which was an amazing opportunity as it is every year to catch up with many familiar candidates and clients. We have plans to host a number of other events throughout the remainder of the year, for more information please contact your regular consultant.

For more information about the market, or to find your next role in treasury please contact Eliot Bates.