Market Research, Analysis & Insight Recruitment News

In the latter part of 2017 (post June) hiring increased on the temporary/freelancer side across the Research & Insight  industry for Insight and Research Directors, Associate Directors, Consultants, Analysts, Senior Research Executives and Project Managers. We’ve also seen lots of reinvention and restructuring within the industry which has seen a much higher demand for temps across all levels.

The number of permanent jobs registered since June has also increased compared to 2016, and actual permanent hires has risen by 15% compared to the same period in the previous year. This has been across all areas of Analytics, Insights, Research, Project Management  and Digital Analysis.

Skills in Demand

There is a continued demand for advanced digital and analytical skills. Not surprisingly analytical skills have been at the forefront of the majority of research job briefs. This year has seen a further increase in the use of advanced analytics technology and more of our cl;ients are developing bespoke tools and software to allow their clients to merge and make sense of streams of data from  multiple sources and devices including mobile, web and social media.

Examples of sought after analytical  skills include clustering, machine learning models (e.g. random forest, SVM), optimisation, discrete choice modelling (e.g. CBC, MBC, perceptual, max-diff), monadic testing, and regression.

Microsoft Excel (VBA), Q, SPSS, R, Python, SQL (including SSAS and SSIS) and Sawtooth are also amongst the most often used software packages.

The need to hire freelancers has increased, to cope with the additional workloads and to help manage growth within teams, and workloadsa created by replacement roles and new business generation within the agencies.

Predictions for the coming Quarter

It’s still a good time to look for a permanent job if you have niche skills and are at mid-level experience. We also expect the demand for temps/freelancers to increase in 2018 as skills’ shortages continue to impact on the ability of many of our clients to fill roles permanently. We do however believe that next year will continue to be a period of uncertainty for many London based companies as we find out what the impact of Brexit will be on the UK job market.