The IHBC has just added its first Research Note for 2016 to its practitioners’ Toolbox, on England’s local authority jobs market, entitled: ‘Market Intelligence Local Authority Conservation Specialists Jobs Market 2015’ (RN2016/1, Jan 2016).
Author Bob Kindred MBE, IHBC’s Research consultant, summarises the note as follows:
This Research Note summarises the job vacancies advertised largely on the IHBC’s web pages in 2015 under the section on ‘IHBC Jobs etc’. It provides a detailed picture of long-term trends in the market including job requirements, qualifications and levels of remuneration, together with regional variations.
- The Institute’s data set now covers over 1650 posts over 18 years since 1998.
- In 2015 posts advertised in England returned to their pre-recessionary level of c2007 up 34% over last year and a year-on-year improvement since 2011.
- The unexpected emergence in 2014 of either temporary or part-time posts (or both) equalling those of permanent posts did not materialise again in 2015 and may be a one-off phenomenon.
- The average median salary advertised posts in 2015 was £29,499 a fall of 3.4% on 2014 (and with the exception of 2012) a figure not so low since 2008 showing that salary levels remaining depressed.
- The requirement among local planning authorities for applicants to be members of IHBC is a rising trend. 65% of advertised posts in 2015 considered this to be essential or desirable (up from just under 40% in 2014) suggesting increasing brand recognition and the value placed on IHBC’s professional status and its set of competences.
- Development management advice continued to dominate job functions with 61% of jobs identifying this as the principal role (up from 46% in 2014).
- Seven of IHBC’s ten English Branches had more than ten advertised vacancies during 2015 with only the North, North West, and Yorkshire well below the vacancies elsewhere.
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