Your 60 second guide to indirect tax recruitment in February 2023

Following the predictable bounce in hiring activity that you tend to see in January, we have surprisingly seen a small downturn in February. This doesn't usually happen and, typically, we'll see activity gradually build until late spring.

But it's a strange one and we're scratching our heads here... While the numbers are there to indicate a 14% decline in in-house hiring across the indirect taxes on a macro level (UK&I, BENELUX, and DACH), it really doesn't feel that way from where we sit.

In the past month, Harvey John 's indirect tax team have recorded more in-house vacancies from new clients called in than ever before! And this is mirrored exactly by our colleagues covering the direct tax market.

So on a micro level, we're seeing a completely different market.

So what's really happening in the in-house indirect tax market?

Ultimately, the struggle to hire well qualified candidates is becoming increasingly more apparent, in our opinion, and we're consistently hearing of companies facing a much tougher time in being able to attract candidates.

Of course, we do need to take into consideration that there continues to be widespread redundancies of internal recruitment teams which may be a factor in the increase roles being released to external recruiters. But that hasn't really been the driving factor for us...

Our feeling is that the job descriptions for indirect tax are becoming increasingly diversified and specialist. As opposed to your run-of-the-mill 'Indirect Tax Analyst' or 'VAT Manager' positions, the jobs coming our way are looking to tap into an increasingly more specialised pool of candidates and it's here where we believe that companies are facing challenges in attracting qualified applications.

In the past month alone, we've had jobs called in that require extensive experience in e-filing, Vertex, Oracle, PowerBI, and of course, expertise in particular jurisdictions.

With the indirect tax landscape continuing to evolve, we suspect February 2023 could very well be a microcosm of what we'll see as the year continues.

What were the headline numbers?

⭐ 51% of all in-house vacancies were in the UK&I, followed by the DACH region at 27.5%, mirroring what we saw last month

⭐ 42.5% of roles were at the Manager grade, followed by Analyst's accounting for an additional 29.5%

⭐ 2.5% of roles were tax technology focused

And the sectors with the highest demand were:

🔥 Manufacturing & Engineering (17%)

🔥 Retail (15%)

🔥 Technology (15%)

🔥 Automotive (8.5%)

How is the professional services market looking?

Professional services has been a tough market to recruit for this past year and what never gets any easier is the continued demand for experienced Managers and Senior Managers. This is the same across the board and February has very much mirrored every other month in this respect.

What has changed, however, is that there's been some promising signs of candidates becoming more susceptible to making a move but staying in practice. This has been music to some of our clients ears this past month!

Across the Big 4 market, all eyes are on EY's partner vote in March. Will the firm split? How will this have an impact on both the creation of vacancies and candidate flow? Time will tell.

Elsewhere, it appears that the VAT compliance industry is continuing to thrive and we seeing a steady flow of opportunities across Europe being called in.

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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