2025 hiring trends and insights

Author: Hays

Against a backdrop of ongoing skills shortages and fierce competition for top talent, it’s crucial that employers stay up to date on the latest salary trends if they’re to effectively attract and retain staff. A competitive salary offering is one way to help attract and retain employees. In professional services in accountancy and finance, 82% of employers have increased salaries in the last 12 months, with an average salary growth of 3.2%, surpassing the UK average of 2.4%.

These findings come from our Hays 2025 Salary and Recruiting Trends Guide, which surveys almost 11,000 employers and professionals, offering valuable insights into salary bandings, recruitment trends and more. Here we explore some of the key hiring trends and insights from our guide.

Challenges facing employers in the year ahead

To understand the employment market outlook, we asked employers about the challenges they anticipate in the coming year. Their responses included the economic environment, managing change and skills shortages. In professional services in accountancy and finance, employers foresee the biggest external challenge as recruiting the right talent, with 55% selecting this as a potential issue, while internally, 60% expect to face difficulties with retaining talent. Other anticipated challenges include rising business costs, potentially worsened by the October 2024 Budget.

Senior leaders in this space identified increasing operating profit as their top strategic goal, but limited finances and a shortage of skilled professionals could make this trickier to achieve.

Attracting talent: beyond the salary offering

The job market is set to be buoyant in the year ahead, with three-quarters (75%) of employers in professional services in accountancy and finance planning on recruiting. It’s worth noting that our hiring gauge was taken pre-budget so some employers may have changed their hiring plans slightly since. However, it’s still crucial that staff attraction and retention remains at the forefront of employers’ minds, or they could risk losing potential applicants – or existing staff members – to the competition. A competitive salary and benefits package is a key part of this. In terms of benefits, those working in professional services in accountancy and finance value health insurance and private medical cover (34%), employee pension (29%) and extra annual leave allowance (24%).

But job satisfaction comes down to more than just salary and benefits. For those considering new roles, an engaging team culture (70%), job security (62%) and flexible working policies (60%) are deemed the biggest priorities. What’s more, almost two-thirds (63%) of professionals working in professional services in accountancy and finance say they wouldn’t consider accepting a job in the future that didn’t offer hybrid working.

With over half (55%) of professionals in this industry planning on switching roles in the year ahead, understanding the latest recruitment trends and salary information is integral to attracting and retaining top talent in a skills short market.

Stay ahead of the latest hiring trends and ensure your salaries remain competitive by checking out our latest Hays 2025 Salary and Recruiting Trends Guide here.

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