Your 60 second guide to customs & global trade recruitment in February 2023

Music to the ears of customs & global trade professionals up and down Europe is that - month by month - we continue to see more and more businesses taking this field seriously. By 'seriously', I mean the growing number of companies who are looking beyond the fact that compliance stands in the way of getting business done and actually see the benefit of strategising in this space, as well as deepening their resources in this area.

Of course, this comes at a point when both customs and trade compliance specialists together are facing the biggest challenges of their careers. Navigating through the murky waters of Brexit (coupled with the war in Ukraine) is no easy feat, let alone with the weight of your business on your shoulders.

But, as we've said for a while now, all of this has firmly put you guys on the map. Silver linings, right?

With a 9.5% ↗️ increase in new in-house vacancies from January, last month was again another very active period of hiring.

Digesting the in-house customs & trade compliance jobs market

• A total of 68 new in-house jobs were released last month across the UK&I (35%), BENELUX (37%), and DACH (28%).
• January was already a dominant month for the release of new roles but February trumped that. Notably, we personally saw the an increase in the number of first time trade-compliance positions, ie. greenfield roles. This is a signal of the growing appetite of deepening in-house expertise here & moving away from external consultants.
• A quick snapshot of the hiring across grades is as follows:

⭐ Analyst - 34%

⭐ Sr Analyst - 26.5%

⭐ Assistant Manager - 6%

⭐ Manager - 22%

⭐ Sr Manager / Director - 8.5%

⭐ Customs Tech - 3%

• And the sectors who were the most active in hiring were:

🔥Manufacturing & Engineering - 17.5%

🔥Logistics - 16%

🔥Technology - 9%

Demand in professional services is continuing to dwindle

Unlike the market for VAT specialists, February was an extremely quiet month in the European professional services scene, following on from what highlighted last month.

From where we sit, the demand that does exist remains with the unfilled opportunities that were released several months ago. This is largely in the UK as the Northern Ireland protocol continues to be contentious issue.

Perhaps part of the decreasing demand for customs advisors comes down to the increasing demand for in-house advisors. Several of the conversations we've had recently has revolved around businesses looking to reduce their reliance on external solutions and start future proofing their trading with more in-house expertise.

That's all for now! But I do want to end on a 'thank you' to all of our subscribers who have helped take Outside In: Indirect Tax to 4000+ subscribers 🎉🎉

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