Regional Variations in Legal Recruitment
We often get enquiries from solicitors wanting to relocate, and when this happens, invariably when going from the south to the north the salary range is impossibly high to source posts, and when going from the north to the south the salary range asked for is impossibly high to source posts! Why?
There is an element of Dick Whittington when people move south - the streets of Croydon or Guildford are paved with gold aren't they? After all, the average house costs a million, and therefore someone has to be earning good money.
When people move north they think about flat caps, ferrets, terraced houses for £18,000 and serious deprivation. Got to be serious money to be made there - someone has to be dealing with the companies and the people working in all that industry?
We have advised firms on numerous occasions to give relocation packages when offering candidates coming a long way to find a new post. It is a good tax efficient way of getting someone an additional fee to start work, and also to ease the wage bill over time. Candidates like it, and it doesnt cost the earth to add £1-2k onto any offer for this.
It is also important to emphasise the billing within a firm, so that a candidate is aware that although there is potential to make good money, salary levels in the area are a direct result of the average fee earner generating X in income. A Sheffield firm will pay less than a Reading firm on the whole, basically due to variations in the cost of living etc.., but it will not be substantially less in any field other than corporate..
Jonathan Fagan, MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment - no.1 online UK legal recruitment agency - save time, skip the legal job boards and let us do the work - register online at www.ten-percent.co.uk/register.htm
We often get enquiries from solicitors wanting to relocate, and when this happens, invariably when going from the south to the north the salary range is impossibly high to source posts, and when going from the north to the south the salary range asked for is impossibly high to source posts! Why?
There is an element of Dick Whittington when people move south - the streets of Croydon or Guildford are paved with gold aren't they? After all, the average house costs a million, and therefore someone has to be earning good money.
When people move north they think about flat caps, ferrets, terraced houses for £18,000 and serious deprivation. Got to be serious money to be made there - someone has to be dealing with the companies and the people working in all that industry?
We have advised firms on numerous occasions to give relocation packages when offering candidates coming a long way to find a new post. It is a good tax efficient way of getting someone an additional fee to start work, and also to ease the wage bill over time. Candidates like it, and it doesnt cost the earth to add £1-2k onto any offer for this.
It is also important to emphasise the billing within a firm, so that a candidate is aware that although there is potential to make good money, salary levels in the area are a direct result of the average fee earner generating X in income. A Sheffield firm will pay less than a Reading firm on the whole, basically due to variations in the cost of living etc.., but it will not be substantially less in any field other than corporate..
Jonathan Fagan, MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment - no.1 online UK legal recruitment agency - save time, skip the legal job boards and let us do the work - register online at www.ten-percent.co.uk/register.htm
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