New searches down 8.5% in 2013 but global revenue up, says AESC
7 March 2014
The number of new searches begun by executive search firms worldwide fell by 8.5% in 2013 compared with 2012, according to the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC) ‘State of the Industry 2013 Annual Report’.
Fri, 7 Mar 2014The number of new searches begun by executive search firms worldwide fell by 8.5% in 2013 compared with 2012, according to the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC) ‘State of the Industry 2013 Annual Report’.
However, despite the drop in the number of searches, global revenues rose by 8.5% to an estimated $10.57bn (£6.32bn) worldwide.
The AESC explains that the combination of higher revenue and fewer searches is due to a 6.1% growth in the value of individual assignments. However, the report also shows that the rise in the average search fee declined from 8.9% in Q1 to 2.4% in Q4.
The annual revenue per consultant in 2013 was 3% higher than in 2012. The decline in the number of new searches was greatest in Central/South America, where there was a 15.5% fall, followed by North America (-9.2%), EMEA (-8.5%) and Asia-Pacific (-3.5%). Within EMEA, the UK saw a marginal (0.3%) fall in new searches.
AESC president, Peter Felix, says: “2013 has confirmed a trend that we have seen growing for the past several years, which is that client organisations are turning to our member firms for top level leadership assignments but less for the volume appointments of the past. Encouragingly this has not affected fee revenue, which is now again very close to the all-time high of 2008. With the rebound of major economies for executive search such as the US and the UK the outlook for our profession during the next few years seems very positive.”
North America remained the largest market for executive search in 2013 holding a 44.8% share of global search activity, followed by EMEA, which accounted for 31.5% of retained executive searches in 2013. Asia-Pacific had a 17% marketshare, followed by Central/South America with 6.7%.
Industrial held the largest share of worldwide senior executive search activity with 25.8% of the market in 2013, followed by financial services sector with 19.1% of new searches started, and then consumer products (18.3%), technology (15.4%) and life sciences/healthcare (13.6%).
However, despite the drop in the number of searches, global revenues rose by 8.5% to an estimated $10.57bn (£6.32bn) worldwide.
The AESC explains that the combination of higher revenue and fewer searches is due to a 6.1% growth in the value of individual assignments. However, the report also shows that the rise in the average search fee declined from 8.9% in Q1 to 2.4% in Q4.
The annual revenue per consultant in 2013 was 3% higher than in 2012. The decline in the number of new searches was greatest in Central/South America, where there was a 15.5% fall, followed by North America (-9.2%), EMEA (-8.5%) and Asia-Pacific (-3.5%). Within EMEA, the UK saw a marginal (0.3%) fall in new searches.
AESC president, Peter Felix, says: “2013 has confirmed a trend that we have seen growing for the past several years, which is that client organisations are turning to our member firms for top level leadership assignments but less for the volume appointments of the past. Encouragingly this has not affected fee revenue, which is now again very close to the all-time high of 2008. With the rebound of major economies for executive search such as the US and the UK the outlook for our profession during the next few years seems very positive.”
North America remained the largest market for executive search in 2013 holding a 44.8% share of global search activity, followed by EMEA, which accounted for 31.5% of retained executive searches in 2013. Asia-Pacific had a 17% marketshare, followed by Central/South America with 6.7%.
Industrial held the largest share of worldwide senior executive search activity with 25.8% of the market in 2013, followed by financial services sector with 19.1% of new searches started, and then consumer products (18.3%), technology (15.4%) and life sciences/healthcare (13.6%).
