Why now is the right time to seek legal locum work in the public sector

By Kate Jasper, Senior Business Manager, Sellick Partnership Limited - Legal Division

 

Legal locum work has always played a key role in helping the public sector to meet its legal obligations and deliver a high quality of service. As a result, professionals who commit to locum work within the sector have typically been well rewarded, both in terms of salary and professional opportunities.

In the last two years, market conditions within the public sector legal field have undergone a significant evolution, with workloads increasing considerably and demand for skilled legal locums rising to unprecedented levels. As such, there has never been a better time for lawyers and solicitors to seek locum work within the public sector, as the number of available roles and opportunities continues to hit new heights.

Here, we will explore the reasons why the environment for legal locums in the public sector has become so favourable, and examine the ways in which professionals can capitalise on these recruitment trends to further their careers.

More opportunities than ever before

Although the COVID-19 pandemic was a difficult time for many industries, its impact created opportunities as well as adversity in certain sectors. Public sector law is a key example of this - during the height of UK lockdowns, many private sector legal firms suspended their operations or paused their growth plans, but at the same time the government invested heavily in public law, due to the constant legislative changes and regulatory initiatives taking place during this period.

 

Since then, the pandemic has eased, but demand for public sector legal professionals continues to surge, driven by the ongoing legal changes taking place as a result of Brexit, the pandemic and other macroeconomic factors. As a result of this, the jobs market has become candidate-driven to a significant degree, with the number of high-quality roles far outstripping the availability of top-class legal talent.

 

This means that candidates for locum roles are firmly in the driving seat when it comes to choosing their opportunities. In the past, a candidate applying for a role may only have had one or two viable options to choose from, but in the current marketplace, there may be as many as 15 positions available that employers are desperate to fill.

The net result is that there are now plenty of locum positions available across every legal discipline, from commercial property and childcare to contracts and information governance.

 

Better-paying roles that meet your preferences

As a result of this increased demand, legal professionals are finding themselves in a strong bargaining position when it comes to securing favourable terms for locum roles, with regard to salaries and other benefits.

Those with a considerable amount of previous experience have been enjoying slightly better salaries than their permanent counterparts, but this gap has widened with higher hourly rates than ever before. Remuneration is a key factor when many lawyers choose to move into the locum field, and the present market rates underline the strong demand for qualified legal professionals to address the current skills gap.

 

This candidate-led market dynamic has also created the following beneficial trends for locums:

● Public sector employers are more geographically flexible in their hiring than ever before. With remote working having been normalised by the pandemic, most employers are willing to cast their net further afield to find capable candidates and are willing to let locum staff work from home most or all of the time. In some cases, organisations are actively downsizing their office premises in favour of remote working on a more permanent basis.

● Employers are also becoming more flexible in terms of how they organise interviews, offering to conduct these remotely in the majority of cases, rather than insisting on a face-to-face meeting. This applies even to senior roles, and is making the interview process less time-consuming and more easily accessible.

● The average duration of locum assignments is now much longer than it used to be, as employers are using locums as longer-term alternatives to making permanent appointments due to a lack of candidates. This means that assignments may now last between nine and 12 months, rather than only three or four, providing more stability and less risk for those who take on these roles.

● Due to the increased competition, public sector employers are refining their employment offering to be more candidate-centric, giving them more scope to define their own flexible working patterns and hours, and doing more to sell themselves and their organisation during the application process. This means that applicants are receiving much more information about what kind of support and structure each organisation will offer and more generous and tailored employment packages overall.

● Candidates without a huge amount of prior locum experience are now much more likely to be seriously considered for roles, meaning that now is an ideal time for professionals who are only just starting to consider locum roles to get a foot in the door.

How to make the move to locum work

For those who are looking to make the switch to locum work in order to take advantage of these trends, the most important priority is to be able to demonstrate your skills, capabilities and relevant experience to prospective employers. This means updating your CV to showcase your professional credentials in the best light.

 

As ever, maintaining strong attention to detail is an important part of this. If you do not have prior locum experience, it is vital to provide a detailed career background or history that highlights and emphasises your qualifications, transferable skills and specialist areas of knowledge, as well as providing examples of the specific projects and large cases you have worked on.

 

It is also essential to prepare properly for each interview, which not only means getting ready for common interview questions but also researching each organisation you will be speaking with, and any individuals who you know will be involved in the panel. This will help to demonstrate that you are keen to work for this particular employer, which will help to create a stronger impression during the interview.

 

Finally, it can be a good idea to work with a specialist recruitment agency to help you find a locum role that is ideally suited to your skills and preferences and to craft an application that plays to your strengths. An agency partner will be able to advise you on how best to approach each application and interview, based on strong knowledge of the current market dynamics.

 

There has never been a better time for professionals to take their first steps into the public sector locum market, and find a role that offers them a considerable reward and professional possibilities. By making this move, they will be able to enter a fast-moving area of legal work, which currently offers more opportunities than ever to get involved in cutting-edge areas of ongoing legal reform.

 

In association with Sellick Partnership (Legal) Limited