Recruiter's June survey of chief executives' salaries revealed that some are seeing their basic salaries top £200,000.

But what about the trainee recruitment consultants, potentially the future chief executives of the industry?

Martyn Makinson, a director of construction recruiter Bromak, told Recruiter that four-and-a-half years ago their trainees were paid a basic salary of £13-£13,500, but that this had risen to £16-£17,000 — an increase of up to 30%.

"The construction market is booming and due to that there's a need to get good sales people to capitalise on that," he said.

There was also a need to bring basic salaries of trainees into line with those of recruiters in other industry sectors, he added.

"We are very much in competition with every other [recruitment agency] out there such as banking, finance and HR," he explained.

"It does come down to a bidding war, and I wouldn't foresee that it will stabilise," he added. "I would be surprised if basic salaries didn't go up a couple of thousand to £18-£20,000."

Cheryl Wing, managing director of rec-to-rec firm GSR2R, told Recruiter that basic salaries for trainee consultants ranged from £18-£22,000 compared to £15-£18,000 four years ago.

Wing said: "Recruiters are taking on people who are experienced in the industry that they are recruiting for. These are people who have had three to four jobs, and as a result they are having to pay them more."

Recruiters recognised that not only did older entrants, sometimes in their late 20s, bring "good product knowledge", they also "had the gravitas to talk to people at board level. Such entrants were asking for, and getting, £25-30,000."

This was more prevalent in specialist areas such as banking, said Wing. However, high street agencies were also taking on people with no industry experience on basic salaries of £30,000 — provided they had commercial sales experience, Wing said.

She said that rising basic salaries reflected a clear market shortage of good candidates. "There is a clear need for recruiters to think outside the box, and to bring in other people," said Wing.

Ros Kindersley, managing director at