UK Permanent Placements Finally Stop Falling After 45 Months
The News
The latest KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs, compiled by S&P Global from a panel of around 400 recruitment consultancies, found that permanent staff placements stabilised in July following only a marginal decline in June, ending a 45-month downturn. Recruiters attributed the levelling-off to new project-linked hiring plans despite political and economic uncertainty, while temp billings rose for a fourth straight month at among the fastest rates seen in three years. Temporary vacancies grew for the first time in two years (the quickest since August 2023), permanent vacancies fell at the softest pace in 22 months, and starting-salary inflation reached a six-month high on a shortage of skilled candidates. London and the Midlands recorded renewed permanent-hiring growth, with the capital hitting a near four-year high, while candidate availability continued to rise on redundancies and a lack of openings.Why It Matters
For the first time since Liz Truss was Prime Minister, the permanent placement index has not fallen — the longest recorded contraction in that series' history. If it holds, this is the leading edge of a UK hiring recovery, and it will show up in your pipeline before it shows up in the ONS vacancy numbers, because the Report on Jobs is a faster monthly signal. The catch is that the recovery is being carried by temporary and flexible hiring first, which changes the mix of what a TA team needs to be good at — and the REC is explicit that it could stall if the Government presses ahead with the heavier-touch elements of the Employment Rights Act.Taking Action
All action is situated in your corporate context. These are starting points, not prescriptions — choose what fits.
Connect
Who to talk with in your enterprise
Your head of talent acquisition and your finance partner. Walking point: if permanent demand is turning, are you staffed for a rise in perm requisitions after three-plus years of managing decline, or has the team been sized and tooled for a contracting market? Your contingent workforce lead: temp billings are the fastest-growing part of the market right now — is your flexible-hiring capacity (vendor panels, IR35 process, onboarding speed) ready for a shift toward temporary-first hiring?Inspect
What to take a closer look at
Pull your own monthly permanent-vs-temp requisition counts for the last six months and check whether they mirror the national stabilisation or lag it. Audit your temp-to-perm conversion path — if employers are using flexible workers as a 'try before you buy' bridge back into permanent hiring, the conversion rate and its cost are the numbers that matter. And check your starting-salary offers against the six-month high in salary inflation: are you being outbid on the scarce skilled roles?Reflect
What to think about more deeply
Permanent placements stabilised in the same month a new Government took office. Is that confidence, coincidence, or simply three-and-a-half years of pent-up vacancies — and how would you tell the difference in your own requisition data?