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Interim Management Market Remains Strong

St Pauls & Millennium Bridge at night

The interim management market proved “buoyant” in 2013, as described in the latest annual report from global executive search firm Boyden. According to the 2013/2014 Annual UK Interim Management Survey, 85% of interim managers secured at least one assignment last year.

The report states that 79% of senior contractors like CEOs, general managers or managing directors were targeted and recruited via specialist interim providers. Moreover, 41% reported that they had been approached in this way about several previous roles. Personal networks resulted in at least one job assignment for 90% of respondents, while 53% were targeted by previous clients.

More than 60% of executive contractors stated that it was “important” for their new task to be in keeping with their previous experience.

When it came to their decisions, interim managers were most influenced by remuneration and the challenge of the new assignment. Priorities have changed over the past few years, as Boyden noted. In 2011, for example, the key motivators were flexibility and assignment variety. In the latest survey, 94% described remuneration as “very important” or “important.” More than 60% of executive contractors stated that it was “important” for their new task to be in keeping with their previous experience.

Another trend highlighted by the report was that for multiple hires. More than half of organisations (57%) stated that they were engaged with more than three contractor executives in 2013 and 38% of employers said they recruited more than seven interim managers last year. It is interesting to note that all survey respondents from the public sector worked with more than four interims. Moreover, 63% of professional and business service companies engaged up to three executive contractors.

The report is based on survey responses from more than 750 interim executives and 100 clients representing a variety of industries. Within the client sample, 73% represent organisations with more than 1,000 employees and 37% represent firms that employ more than 10,000 people.