New Media Recruitment Expects Significant Growth Next Year

Over 80 per cent of new media businesses in Sussex plan to hire more staff

Wired Sussex, the business development agency for new media companies in Sussex, today announced the findings from an independent survey among its clients who had used the recruitment service. Results showed that far from declining, the new media industry in Sussex is set to grow with 83 per cent of companies* planning to increase headcount by next year and two thirds expecting expansion and the recruitment of one to five staff.

A key trend the survey pointed to was the changing face of the jobs and skills required locally. Few skill gaps exist, but some specific skills seen as problematic include programming, design/ development and sales/marketing/customer service. This is supported by another recent survey in the South, which found that only 26 per cent of new media businesses feel there are specific skill shortages, but they noted interactive TV and mobile phone programming skills as among them.

"The Wired Sussex recruitment service is a useful barometer of the local new media environment. Since we launched in the jobs service in April 2000, we've seen over 900 advertisements placed through the service. Notwithstanding the peaks and troughs of recent employment trends, it's gratifying to see that user feedback is once more pointing to strong growth," said Emily Aitken, executive director at Wired Sussex.

One key indicator of the high level of customer satisfaction with the Wired Sussex service is shown from the 87 per cent of respondents who strongly confirmed that the next time they look for staff they plan to use the Wired Sussex site.

One in five survey respondents reported that when hiring, they only use Wired Sussex's Recruitment Service. Whilst advertisers typically use more than one recruitment source, ranging from agencies to print advertising, the majority rated the Wired Sussex service highly for delivering high quality local candidates.

The regional new media job vacancy board is one of the services offered on www.wiredsussex.com, in addition to business services such networking events, international, national and regional business development, industry guides and training. Recruiting companies simply visit the jobs section on the site and are quickly guided through registration before submitting position details to Wired Sussex.

In December 2002 Wired Sussex will be introducing an economical sliding scale of charges to cover usage of this valuable recruitment resource. Kicking off at just £30 and ranging up to around £120 for larger companies, the charges will support Wired Sussex's plans to continue to improve and evolve the service.

This charge compares favourably with average recruitment rates. For example, the cost of a simple advertisement in the local or national print media starts at around £171 and £2,160 respectively. And recruitment agency commissions range from 10% to 20% of final salary - for a position commanding the nation's average salary of £23,607** recruiters could be charged up to £4,721.

* This survey interviewed a selection of Wired Sussex members, which number more than 1,000 new media businesses across Sussex. More than half of those interviewed had less than ten employees, and 41 per cent had 10-49 employees

** 2001 New Earnings Survey, Office for National Statistics