Blog

Exeter is expected to be the city with the fastest growth in Q4 2023 with resilience to the cost-of-living crisis recession, and 1.3% annual GVA growth forecast. This is up from 0.9% growth estimated in Q4 2022, and puts Exeter in eighth place on the city tracker table for GVA growth in that quarter. 

Over the summer, Clodagh and I decided we should use a bit of structure to get to know each other better.  We engaged the services of the wonderful Jo Redgrave who took us both through Insight Discovery Profiles.  So good was the insight we gained about each other, that we decided to roll it out to the SLT here at Cath Apps.  How very, very interesting!  Having worked with some of my team for more than 17 years I thought I had them fairly well sussed, particularly on what drives and motivates them, but I learnt a lot!  We all came together last week to share, learn about our colours and team build - it really was great. I can safely say it was the best team investment we have made (not just financially, but emotionally too) and we will be rolling this out to the wider team early next year.

Love it or hate it, you can’t deny that the festive season is a time to pause, reflect and set goals for the year ahead. It’s been a turbulent few years, but the South West jobs market has remained strong, and it’s that drive and resilience that will see us through into 2023 too. We asked some of the team what they hope to see in 2023 – and without further ado, here’s what they’ll be wishing for this Christmas…

One of the reasons we love doing what we do is seeing people’s lives change because of their career choices, and the opportunities they have taken. We recently caught up with Sarah Jane Smith, who returned to work after taking time off to look after her children, and is now thriving in her chosen career path.

Global competition for talent is seeing employers navigating new territory to attract the vital tech skills they need in a post-pandemic era. With the South West fast becoming a haven for new tech firms hungry for software engineers, programmers, network security specialists and data science experts, dipping into the international talent pool is a logical next step.  

Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed the lowest unemployment rate across the UK for 48 years, at 3.6 per cent nationwide, and the lowest in the entire UK in the South West at just  2.7 per cent.

Many of the jobs we hold nowadays were merely a figment of the imagination just 10 or 20 years ago! Did your role even exist back then? If it did, it was no doubt worlds apart from the work you do today. What was once a fantasy is now our reality, and goodness, it makes you wonder – where will we all be in 20 years’ time?

Employee benefits have always been important to employees, but since the pandemic shifted the way we work and the way we think about work/life balance, the benefits employers have to offer matter more than ever.

Over the years, having a degree has become somewhat of a 'standard requirement' for many jobs – and not just graduate ones! So, we conducted a survey on Twitter and asked Exeter-based employers whether or not they would hire someone without a degree... and the results are in!

More than 6.5 million workers are expected to quit their jobs in the next 12 months with many seeking out better pay, increased job satisfaction and greater work life balance. As a result, the number of open vacancies has also increased rapidly in the past few months.

The job market has been a swinging pendulum for the past two and a half years and it’s caused a lot of uncertainty for clients and candidates alike. However, we’re now entering an era completely led by candidates.

I think most businesses will agree with me when I say that the past few months haven’t been the easiest. As we predicted, economic uncertainty continued; inflation rose to a record-high of 9.1 per cent, yet we had surprise growth. Additional turbulence occurred in the UK’s political landscape with a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Boris Johnson launching in early June.