This year has seen a leap in demand for interim finance employees, managers and directors, driven partly by the need for specialist skills around year-end management and annual budgeting, according to research from specialist recruitment consultancy Robert Half
A survey of over 200 senior finance professionals and 200 HR specialists found strong demand for management or C-suite level skills, with 59% of finance leaders reporting that they are more reliant on contract or temporary resources than they were a year ago.
Reliance on non-managerial employee level interim staff is also rising as 49% of finance leaders say they are more reliant on contract staff than 12 months before.
As well as meeting the need of new UK GAAP reporting standards by year-end and the financial modelling required in the budgeting planning process, the growth in demand for skilled interim finance specialists is also a sign that the traditional workplace is evolving to become more flexible, with 90% of HR directors predicting that temporary and interim professionals will play a greater role in the workplace alongside permanent employees over the next five years.
The main reasons for the change will be the cost-effectiveness of variable budgets attached to temporary and interim staff (cited by 34% of HR directors); the need for more flexible resources generally (28%); the requirement for skills that are not available in-house (16%); the move to more project-based work (15%), the ability to plan for economic fluctuations (4%) and to support increased workloads (3%).
Estelle James, UK director of Robert Half, said: ‘With two thirds of UK businesses needing to adapt to the new financial reporting framework and more starting their annual budget preparation for the coming year, the demand for skilled finance and accounting professionals continues to outpace supply.’
‘It’s important to recognise that the growth in demand for temporary and interim staff identified by our research is not just down to spikes in activity but is also due to the current skills shortage. Interim professionals are a valuable resource for businesses who require specialist skills for key projects.’
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