As businesses froze headcount, utilised furlough and made redundancies – hiring skyrocketed for specialist consultants to step in on a fixed-term contract to help aid recovery and transition during the pandemic.
According to a new report from leading recruiter Robert Walters and data provider Vacancysoft – Interim Management: Central to Business Survival – a third of board-level consultancy projects in the past year have been around organisational restructuring & crisis management.
Over 16,000 senior consultants (or interim professionals) have been hired in the past year on a fixed-term contract – with some charging as much as £2,000 per day for their expertise in business turnaround.
Top 5 most expensive Interim Managers in UK
Director of Internal Audit
£2,000 p/d
Chief Information Security Officer
£1,725 p/d
Transformation & Change Director
£1,600 p/d
General Counsel
£1,200 p/d
Chief Financial Officer
£1,110 p/d
BOOMERANG RECOVERY
An initial recruitment dip in the first half of 2020 was short-lived as interim management vacancies hit record levels in October 2020 – increasing by +103% in Q3 2020 and a further +30% in Q4 2020.
The spike in demand – as of October 2020 – signals the biggest increase in temporary and contract vacancies since 2018.
When looking at levels in 2021 – hiring for interim professionals has increased by 50% compared to the same period last year. According to the report, 59% of consultants expect to find their next interim assignment within 3 months – twice as quickly as they usually would have pre-pandemic.
