TAX INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT – 2022 VACANCY ANALYSIS & TRENDS

22/07/2022 Tax News

We analysed our tax vacancy data with a focus on comparing 2020 against 2021 in order to gain insight into current market activity and to predict likely trends that we anticipate in 2022. Our analysis shows that overall tax vacancies in 2021 were up 135% against 2020 with recruitment activity continuing to rise in the early stages of 2022. These figures exceed all pre-pandemic levels of activity on record and therefore 2022 is set to become the busiest year in tax recruitment history.

We identified 3632 tax vacancies that were advertised directly by employers and not through agencies in the public domain throughout 2021 which represents a 135% year on year increase in recruitment activity. The breakdown of firms and industry sectors recruiting for these roles were…

61% Accountancy Firms
33% In-House roles across Commerce & Industry and Financial Services
4% Law Firms
2% Management Consulting Firms

The pie charts below also reveal the most active firms and industries recruiting tax talent based on this data…

We also undertook a number of surveys and held focused discussions with our network of tax professionals throughout 2021 and can reveal that the most common factors contributing to this significant increase in recruitment activity are…

  • The anticipation that revenue authorities globally will look to recover the cost of paying for the COVID-19 pandemic through the tax system. This has led to a significant increase in recruitment activity on the in-house side of the market as finance leaders look to bolster their tax function to protect against investigation whilst also commercially managing their global effective tax rate.
  • The ongoing ‘deals led recovery’ from the pandemic has resulted in significant M&A activity and has substantially increased demand for Transaction Tax professionals.
  • The Brexit agreement also contributed to more certainty around the UK’s future relationship with the EU which in turn created more confidence in the tax recruitment market generally and caused a particular spike in demand for VAT professionals.
  • The ongoing digitalisation, change and transformation of global tax functions has created an increased demand for tax professionals with technology and data skills.

If you would like to discuss our findings in more detail, please feel free to contact:

Author: Graham Young – Director
Tel: 020 3826 8832
Email: graham.young@capitaltaxrecruitment.com