Sourced Quarterly Market Update – Winter 2017

Goodbye Shortest Day!

We hope you’re keeping well and warm as we finally get past the hump of the shortest day. With the coldest days really creeping us on us we’ve all been spending a lot more time indoors, and making the most of the sun when it chooses to show itself! Right in the middle of a really hectic period internally, we’ve been working on a range of junior – senior, permanent and contract positions across Christchurch and Auckland, with no pause in sight. It’s a busy time, and we look forward to filling you in on why!

In this quarter update, we look at how the second quarter of the year has shaped up, and what we might expect to see in the coming months.

General Comments

The year continues at a cracker pace, with permanent roles continuing to being released and contract opportunities picking up with equal pace. There is definitely a sense of urgency about to get new teams established and running, seats filled to meet project demands, and market optimism on the whole remains positive. From a retention perspective, it’s still a very positive picture for employers, with valued team members broadly choosing not to look at the market and sourcing coming via a range of expat, new migrant, relocation and returning to work talent pools.

There is definitely a sense of urgency about to get new teams established and running, seats filled to meet project demands, and market optimism on the whole is very positive. 

From a permanent perspective, demand is broad and from junior through to senior/specialist, and from a contract perspective, planning and ramp up of projects is well and truly underway, with a firm ongoing demand for Business Analysts and Project Managers being at the fore.

As mentioned above, we are continuing to draw heavily on international and expat candidate markets, with active movement within the Canterbury region down. This has been a full year to date trend, and given we’re already mid year, we do expect this sentiment to continue with recruitment activities predominantly aimed at building new teams, new capability and delivery projects as opposed to recruiting due to attrition.

From Auckland’s Perspective

In the year since we opened our Auckland office, the business continues to grow. We have been fortunate in establishing some solid partnerships with key clients as we work with them to manage their talent planning and pipelines, both in New Zealand and offshore.

With the overall technology market growth in Auckland – largely driven by organisations undergoing continuous digital transformation – we are seeing more businesses evolving to cloud-based platforms. In turn, this creates a higher demand for cloud specialists, big data specialists and analysts as organisations underpin their decision-making with measurable data.

Talent in demand continues to be at the senior level. With the demand/supply imbalance, good intermediate level candidates with attitude and an aptitude for knowledge and learning are often stepping up into these roles. Where niche skill sets are hard to come by, we rely on our border talent search to be able to keep up with the growth of Auckland.

Job-seeker trends – A growing number of job seekers are rating workplace flexibility ahead of remuneration.

Employer trends – Aside from the technical skill-sets, employers rate adaptability, cultural/team fit, business acumen and communication skills. Organisations which offer L&D opportunities are winning on the acquisition and retention front.

Within Sourced Walls