Last week was our annual recruiters' event in London, where we presented the latest recruitment trends to a packed house of management consultancy recruiters. The various findings (bonuses, pay rises, retention rates, candidate acquisition channels, etc.) will be reported in our newsletter over the coming month. But for now - for all those thinking of looking for a new career in consulting - I wanted to share with you just what a buoyant market this now is!

Based on data submitted by all the top consulting firms, we were able to calculate that to achieve revenue growth targets for the year, firms would need to hire the equivalent of 24% of their existing headcount over the coming 12 months. That's a phenomenal level of recruitment activity - and bodes well for anyone who's job-hunting in the next months.















As the chart shows, 18% revenue growth is expected in 2007 - a repeat of the growth seen in 2006. 7% of this revenue growth could come from an inflation of fee rates, but the rest needs to come from billing more days of consulting. With the top firms acknowledging they have no spare capacity at present, the rest of this growth (11%) has to come from bringing in new hires. Add to this the expected 13% staff churn rate for 2007 (up from 10.3% in the last year) and you have the 24% growth rate confirmed.

Exciting times for all you consulting candidates!

;-)

Tony