15 December 2021
Legal hiring slowed in November as the Omicron variant hit the headlines, but 2021 has still been a record year for the legal jobs market, according to recruiters Robert Walters
National vacancies steadily increased by 6% each month for the first ten months of this year (averaging 32,377 new vacancies each month) but the hiring spree stalled in November with a drop of 9%. The biggest contraction in November was 14% in the north, when the HS2 rail project was downgraded. Chris Poole, managing director at Robert Walters, which publishes its 2022 UK Salary Guide this month, said: ‘Our forecast is that activity in the legal sector will continue to mirror what is happening across financial services and real estate. The busier those two industries are, the more the law firms will recruit.’