New addition Georgina Norris explains what's happening in the junior to mid level tax market

At Pure, Georgina specialises in assisting junior to mid-level tax candidates to find interim roles that suit them and their goals. Her clients include FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 companies as well as financial services institutions.

Prior to joining Pure, Georgina was dedicated to financial services recruitment within an international listed recruitment consultancy. She successfully built key relationships with the banks, investment management firms as well as other financial organisations.

Key drivers in the junior to mid-level interim tax market

During 2009, we saw an increased appetite in the demand for candidates at the junior to mid-level. A large amount of recently qualified CTA or ACA candidates were made redundant from the Big 4 or large accountancy firms. Additionally, many candidates were let go due to exam failure. Junior to mid-level candidates were attractive to clients as a cost effective way of injecting talent into teams with the purpose of growth and development. In turn, interim to permanent recruitment at the junior to mid-level was a popular solution for clients, avoiding headcount restrictions that were enforced throughout 2009.

Since the turn of 2010, recruitment at the junior to mid-level in industry and commerce remains buoyant and financial services has recovered. This has provided us with a very different picture compared to 2009, where financial services tax teams were paralysed by stringent headcount freezes. Among the distressed and recently merged banks, there has been an inherent failure of risk management. This in turn has led to our clients looking to supplement busy seasonal periods and overworked, downsized teams by strong talent at the junior end.