IHBC’s online Toolbox practitioner resource has posted our regular update of ‘Market Intelligence’ on England’s local authority (LA) conservation-related jobs, from the ‘IHBC Jobs etc.’ service, confirming that for 2019 ‘conservation posts… in England fell back… one-third’, and were the lowest since 2014-15.
Bob Kindred, IHBC research consultant and Research Note author said: ‘This Research Note summarises the job vacancies advertised largely on the IHBC’s web pages in 2019 under the section on ‘Jobs etc’.’
‘It provides a detailed picture of long-term trends in the market including job requirements, qualifications and levels of remuneration, together with regional variations.
IHBC Director Sean O’Reilly said: ‘IHBC Research Notes are produced as part of our integrated online support for conservation practitioners, the IHBC’s ‘Toolbox’.’
‘Our Toolbox has been developed to help inform, advise and guide anyone with specialist interests in built and historic environment conservation. Already it offers a wide range of basic resources – the ‘tools’ in the toolbox – from primary research and guidance produced by or on behalf of the IHBC, to practice standards and learning support.’
‘This Research Note highlights trends across one of the most important measures in conservation management – the state of our local authority conservation capacity. By advising on known knowledge gaps in policy and practice such as this, our ToolBox fulfils the role for which it was conceived and designed’.
Bob Kindred writes:
- The Institute’s data set now covers about over 1,900 posts continuously over 22 years since 1998.
- In 2019 the number of built heritage conservation posts advertised in England fell back by one-third from those seen in 2018 and was lower than at any point since 2014-15.
- It is not clear if the sector is fully recovering from the very low point of 2011 and 2012. As a consequence of the state of local government finances it is not clear if the gradually increasing trend has ceased.
- The number of posts re-advertised within six months fell sharply to five.
- The average median salary advertised for advertised posts in 2019 was £33,495 a rise of 2.9% on 2018.
- It was encouraging to note that during 2019 the number of local planning authorities that had considered IHBC membership as essential or desirable for applicants had risen to 69% having fallen back in the previous two years. IHBC membership remains as a benchmark for professional status and competence.
- Only 6.8% of local planning authorities continue to specify membership of the Royal Town Planning Institute alone as a job requirement although this rose to 27.1% when membership of RIBA or RICS were included.
- No posts in 2019 specifically requested membership of CIfA as a qualifying requirement.
- Development management advice, appeals and enforcement continued to dominate prioritised job functions and a low level of diversification of workload functions continued to be evident in 2019.
- Few fixed-term posts related to grant schemes supported by outside agencies sought applicants, with only four Townscape Heritage and one Heritage Action Zone post being promoted.
- Regional variations in advertised posts and salaries in England in 2019 showed significant variations between Branches with only one post advertised in Yorkshire & Humberside and two in the North West (covering (Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Isle of Man, Lancashire and Merseyside).
- Elsewhere there was a small but steady turnover of posts in five of the nine English IHBC Branch areas with the number of advertised vacancies otherwise ranged from a low of four in The North (Cleveland, Cumbria, Durham, Northumbria, Tyne & Wear) to a high of eighteen in the South (Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Oxfordshire).
- Notably higher salaries continued to be paid in London and the South East, with the South catching up, but median salary levels for new posts fell back markedly in East Anglia (Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Suffolk).
- Other IHC Branch areas returned closer to to the national median level but the West Midlands continued to demonstrate a long-term trend of less well remunerated new vacancies.
NB although the IHBC is active across the United Kingdom the analysis in this Research Note relates solely to information gleaned about England’s Local Authorities.
Read the Research Note on Market Intelligence Local Authority Conservation Specialists Jobs Market 2019
See all the ToolBox resources, see more Research Notes in the Toolbox
See more on the ‘IHBC Jobs etc.’ service
