The wider UK labour market is best described as 'low hire, low fire': recruitment is weaker, redundancies have risen only slightly, and vacancies have dropped below pre-pandemic levels, according to the Low Pay Commission's 2025 report. That backdrop matters for finance leaders, because it shapes how much competition you face for the people you actually need.
Even so, demand hasn't dried up everywhere. The ONS Vacancies and jobs bulletin for November 2025 shows the largest volume increase in vacancies came in the professional, scientific and technical activities sector, which rose by 5,000 in the three months to October. In practice, hiring today is selective. Employers are cautious in general but still moving fast for specialists who protect accuracy and control.
The 2026 outlook points the same way. Businesses are taking a careful approach to hiring, but there are clear demand hotspots for specialist skills, as Computer Weekly's tech recruitment outlook notes. Reconciliations and control roles sit squarely in that specialist bracket for finance teams.
Reconciliations and control roles in UK finance cover the people who match transactions, investigate breaks, close the books and keep the audit trail clean. Think reconciliations analysts, financial control accountants, balance sheet substantiation specialists and control managers. As transaction volumes and regulatory expectations climb, these teams grow to keep every ledger accurate and every exception explained.
There's a wider dynamic worth watching, though. Entry-level hiring is under real pressure across the economy. techUK reports a 30% drop in UK entry-level job postings since late 2022, and a GOV.UK snapshot of entry-level hiring shows the gap between junior and senior demand widening in technical professions. For finance, that means the junior reconciliations roles that once fed the talent pipeline are harder to find, so building your own bench matters more than ever.
Automation is reshaping the work, not removing it. As routine matching gets automated, control teams lean harder on judgement: spotting the exception, understanding the regulation, explaining the number. The AI skills picture underlines how quickly demand can shift. the DSIT AI Labour Market Survey 2025 found apprenticeships rose from 3% of AI hires in 2020 to 19% in 2025, a sign that employers are training talent up rather than only buying it in. Finance leaders can borrow that playbook for control roles.
Start with the outcome, not the title. Write the role around the controls you need to protect: which reconciliations, at what volume, to what deadline, under which regulations. That clarity helps you assess the two things that separate strong control hires from average ones, accuracy under pressure and clear communication of exceptions.
Move quickly on the shortlist. In a selective market, the best specialists are contacted by several employers at once, and the KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs tracks how candidate availability and placement activity move month to month. A slow process loses good people. Test for real skills with a short reconciliation exercise rather than a generic case study, and be honest about the tools your team uses so people can picture the day job.
Finally, plan the pipeline. With junior openings scarcer across the market, growing your own control talent through apprenticeships or structured progression protects you against future shortages. The specialists you hire today are the control managers you promote in two or three years.
When you need a specific reconciliations or control hire, we search a database of 15 million candidates and rank a shortlist in under 30 seconds, so you focus on people who fit the role rather than sifting applications. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. That fee is about one thing: finding the right person and handling the whole process for you. Ready to grow your control team? Tell Reed.ai the role and start your shortlist today.
