London legal jobs boom defies downturn
Employment in London in legal services is growing faster than any other financial or professional service, new figures have revealed.
According to lobby group TheCityUK, the number of legal services employees in the City rose in the first half of 2012 by 3.3% to 118,700. The figure surpassed pre-recession levels for the first time and was a 24% jump on the five-year low of 95,900 in 2010.
Compared with figures at the end of 2011, insurance employment fell by 2.3% and the number of banking jobs decreased by 1.6%.
TheCityUK’s London Employment Survey found a net increase of 2,700 jobs in the first half of the year, largely due to the 1.5% growth in professional services.
Chris Cummings, chief executive of TheCityUK, said: ‘The financial and professional services sector is critical to the UK economy and London is the number one financial centre in the world. However, we cannot afford to be complacent. The job market is still sluggish and London is facing competition from other financial centres, including those in Asia and America.
‘We need to do all we can to ensure that London remains attractive to talented employees as a place to work, and that firms are able to compete against their peers in the US and Far East.’
The largest sector by employment is accounting and management consulting, which as of June 2012 together employed 191,600 people in London. The next largest sectors are banking (143,800), legal services (118,700), insurance (70,700) and fund management (22,000). Auxiliary and other financial services sectors employ an additional 119,600 people.
Meanwhile, figures released by the Solicitors Regulation Authority last week show the number of foreign lawyers practising in England and Wales increased by 10% in September to 1,929.
The growth helped contribute to a monthly rise of more than 2,000 practising solicitors overall to 127,109.
Comments
London ?
Oh I see, you mean the City of London....None of this is surprising in relation to the economy of the City...at least all those Corporate Insolvency Practitioners could be booming !
As for the rest of London, legal services and all, the picture is very different and gives no cause for hope.
Oh well, with the growing
Oh well, with the growing beurocracy in the world this doesn't come as a surprise. Soon you will need a lawyer to get the legal right to tie your shoes.
Lies!!!
Lies! 250 firms have closed in the summer and 2000 more jobs? Lies! Drowning but still telling lies...very sad.
Oh I see....
How reassuring to know that legal jobs in the City are on the rise when four months after completing my LPC, along with my highly valued law degree from KCL I am having to do a menial job just to keep my head above water and can't even get an interview for a legal related job...but do keep telling us how fantastically fortunate we are!
Why did you do the LPC
Why did you do the LPC without a job? Are you insane?
Demoralized
There may have been an increase in a certain type of job, but jobs that those starting out in a legal career are looking for are subject to insane levels of competition. Law is supposed to be a respected subject and yet there is silence from employers, with the only replies to applications being an automated 'no thanks'. It is very difficult to transfer those legal skills into other jobs as they are looking for specific experience, which in the most part can only be gained by having done something similar. That only leaves the most menial of jobs (irrelevant, low-paid and short-term), which are also in high demand and leave you feeling demoralized after the years of study and cost. It is extremely unlikely you can 'work your way up' from this situation in Britain today. Where is law as a profession and where is social mobility?
Lack of Leadership
Has the Law Society in recent years shown leadership on the issue of too many students seeking a career in the Law?
It is shameful that nothing has been to repair the shattered dreams of individuals who in many cases have spent years studying.
Articles like the above give a distorted view of the demand for training contracts especially as the horrendous effects of OFR are largely an irrelevance for such firms
Foreign Lawyers
If this government would only do something about immigration (working visa rules/free movement of people in the EU), then perhaps solicitors trained in England & Wales would have priority over the 1,929 jobs currently being taken by foreign lawyers. Having worked in a city firm, where we had
a good number of foreign lawyers (namely from NZ, Canada, US, Australia, France, S. Africa), none of whom were employed because of any language skill or client relationship/contacts, one has to
question whether, as a country, we can afford to keep ignoring the high level of white immigration.