The number of Finance Directors starting new permanent appointments across the Yorkshire region is significantly increasing. More positions started in August than in June and July combined, with the level of campaigns suggesting that the momentum will gather even more pace in September.

Although starters in June and July were down on previous years, this is balanced by the noticeably high number for August - never usually a busy month for the start of new positions. We were engaged on more senior finance leadership campaigns in August than in any month in the past twelve.

Admittedly, I was very pleasantly surprised by this and it extended way ahead of my expectations of the market a few weeks ago. Confidence across our team has grown each month since lockdown and is now pretty strong (albeit we can only ever predict 3-4 months into the future in any market)Almost one third of the new hires are in newly created jobs (mostly in growing businesses, new investments and re-locations of companies to the area). This is excellent to see and should inspire all of us with some optimism. Behind this number are some great stories and excellent businesses – Stories like Carlton Forest (featured in one of our posts last month ) where the owners see opportunity, have been performing well and are putting investment in their confidence.

These positive statistics continue to surprise many within our network – seemingly at odds with the negative messages on the employment and economic outlook from the main media. However, reports produced by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation show that this trend is not just restricted to what we are seeing – with one of their latest reports showing the number of advertised jobs in the UK rising to a six month high at the end of August – with the Yorkshire region seeing more growth than London and the South East.

I feel obliged to add a caveat to this article and to temper it with a more apprehensive conclusion. However, I am not going to! Nobody can predict what is going to happen in the next few months, but we can look at what is happening now to guide our actions and views – the facts are that there are a good number of businesses doing well, levels of confidence returning to many others and the wheels are still turning within the executive finance job market. There is every reason to hope that this continues as the schools return and many businesses enter the next stage of their planning.