Media and entertainment sectors see 34% rise in staff hirings

A new report indicates a healthy rise in hiring across the media and entertainment sectors for a range of job functions.

Permanent vacancy levels within media and entertainment across all the main business functions: Sales marketing and digital; HR; office support; finance; legal and executive search, have risen by almost 34% in May when compared with the average totals across February, March and April. Temporary roles have decreased slightly which is not surprising given the healthy increase in permanent vacancies.

This is according to specialist media and entertainment consultancy, Handle Recruitment which has just released its second report which tracks the percentage increase/decrease across all of its specialist disciplines.

Marketing roles have increased by 63% with vacancies on both the client and agency side. “The digital space continues to increase in importance within the media and entertainment sectors”, says Dominic Warman Director of Handle’s Marketing Division, “this is driven by the fact that these industries were early adopters of social media.

“There is a real need for people who can effectively create innovative campaigns across multiple platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare. Creativity on its own is not enough and there is a real emphasis on insight and analysis and those who can really add value to the bottom line. Solid commercial experience and skill sets around measurements and analysis are still key to the media and entertainment sectors.”

Average salaries have remained steady at around £40,000 suggesting a trend towards mid-senior level hires.

Support roles have seen an even bigger upswing - 72% in May compared with the average across previous four months. This is seen as a positive trend suggesting that increasing workloads are driving demand for experienced administrative and office support staff.

The market for finance professionals is incredibly buoyant at the moment with finance departments recruiting heavily within the media and entertainment sectors. “The digitalisation of music, films and books has seen the entertainment industry having to get more creative about the financial solutions to problems around piracy and sales,” says Tom Chadwick Director of Handle’s Finance Division.

Commenting on the results of this report, Peter Tafler, Managing Director said: “While there is no doubt that it is still a very competitive job market, our core markets of TV, film music and media are undoubtedly in the market for talent”