Hello! Diana Anderson here,

We’re delighted to bring you our salary report for 2023.

Overall, another busy year for both our permanent and temporary divisions with clients expanding or adjusting their existing support teams and new clients opening offices in London. That said, Q4 saw this demand for permanent hires level off; a combination of candidate concerns over leaving a secure role pre-Christmas combined with client caution associated with the UK economy. Relatively short-lived, the year ended on a positive note with a healthy pipeline of new roles for 2024 and renewed interest from a wide range of very good candidates.

Permanent salaries continued their 2022 rise in Q1 and Q2 of last year and the number of counteroffers increased with the best candidates very much in the driving seat. This resulted in a marked increase in clients enquiring about innovative ways to improve their benefits packages, including bonus benchmarking requests. Another noticeable adjustment was the expectation from entry-level candidates for higher starting salaries. Cost of living concerns have clearly had a greater impact at this level which we expect will continue in 2024. Towards the senior end this salary shift was less apparent, but at this level clients have greater flexibility with performance-based bonus payments and ad hoc salary reviews.

Our temp and contract desks experienced the usual variances in the annual calendar with the main holiday periods proving to be busy. To offset the decrease in new permanent roles in Q4 we saw an increase in demand for flexible temps to provide cover at peak times.

Once again, the highest salaries in 2023 were offered to Assistants working for private individuals, entrepreneurs and family offices. This sector also saw an increase in requests for Chiefs of Staff. Salaries for all other industries across the year rose again compared with 2022, with charities and creative companies still paying the least. But we expect this pattern of salary inflation to level off this year leading to a ‘normalisation’ of salaries at offer stage.

Hybrid working and flexible hours are still very popular with candidates overall, but we’ve seen junior candidates who live in central London very open to 5 days in the office. Overall, we don’t expect to see candidates’ demand for hybrid working decline soon, but more clients are starting to request a full-time office presence in the initial months of employment, if not permanently.

In summary, the job market held strong in 2023, albeit with a reduced number of new roles in Q4 and a settling down of salaries at offer stage. This ‘normalisation’ of salaries we predict will continue in 2024 and the job market will remain strong with clients taking increased control of what has been a candidate-driven market for the last 2 years or so.

Due to limitations on space this is a very brief summary of our findings for last year but please do drop me an email at diana@andersonhoare.co.uk to discuss anything further.

Diana Anderson January 2024