The increasing amount of employment legislation, combined with greater employee awareness of their rights, is creating unprecedented demand for employment law specialists, it was claimed this week.

Tim Bates, managing director of legal search firm Macildowie Bates, said recent research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that human resources professionals now have to spend more than 20% of their time dealing with employment law issues.

'The legal aspects of recruitment and retention are a major issue for every employer,' he said, citing recent and forthcoming anti-discrimination legislation as particular drivers.

'HR professionals are hard pressed to keep up to date with the ever-increasing range of employment-related legislation.'

'With more legislation on the way, a war for talent in the employment law field seems inevitable.'

Robin Broughton, an employment associate in the Birmingham office of City-based DLA, said: 'Our team in Birmingham has roughly tripled in size over the last five years - a period in which no less than 17 new employment laws have been introduced.

I think it's fair to say that good-quality employment lawyers remain a scarce resource.'

Julian Hemming, a partner at Osborne Clarke in Bristol and chairman of the Employment Lawyers Association, said the increase in legislation and general corporate pick-up had boosted demand, and especially for more experienced lawyers.

'Because of the growth in legislation, newly qualified lawyers take longer to get on top [of the subject].

As a rule of thumb, it takes two years.'

He added that companies were increasingly looking to take employment lawyers in-house so as to reduce the costs of external advice, which has a knock-on effect on the pool for private practice.