UK contact centres set to add over 100,000 more jobs by 2014

Research published by ContactBabel, the contact centre industry analysts, reveals that after a loss of more than 35,000 jobs in 2009, the industry returned to positive growth in 2010

Based on thousands of UK contact centre operations, including hundreds of in-depth, confidential interviews about budgets, plans and investments, "UK Contact Centres in 2011: The State of the Industry" quantifies the size, structure and future of the market. 

The report predicts that the UK contact centre marketplace will add 100,000 new jobs by the end of 2014, and author, Steve Morrell, commented: "The UK contact centre industry has faced down some tough challenges over the years, with pundits predicting offshoring and multimedia would destroy it. With web self-service recently being announced as the preferred way for citizens to communicate with government, the industry will continue to be tested fully.

"Despite this, the return to positive growth in 2010 shows how necessary live customer contact is to organisations of all types, although the report predicts that four of the 15 vertical markets covered will decline in the next four years."
Looking into the immediate future ContactBabel predicts 6.8% increase in UK contact centre headcount in 2011 with 44% of respondents to the recent large-scale industry survey expecting significant growth in agent headcount in the next 12 months, with only 19% expecting further shrinkage.

The general feeling of being over the worst of the recession is supported by figures showing the per-capita induction course expenditure being up to almost £1,900, which is a 60% increase on last year.

"The UK Contact Centre Decision-Makers' Guide (8th edition - 2010)", is a major study of over 200 UK contact centre operations, looking at all areas of contact centre performance, investment, technology, HR and strategy. This year, it is available entirely free of charge.

The report's author, Steve Morrell, commented: "It is often said that the first cuts to be made in a recession are in training and marketing budgets, as the negative results of these will be felt sometime in the future rather than immediately. The 2009 training budget figures bore that out, with a dramatic drop in training expenditure, but this trend seems to be in reversal now. 

"In terms of expected agent growth figures for 2011, public sector respondents are unsurprisingly the least bullish, along with the transport & travel and utilities sectors. The majority of retail & distribution, outsourcing, finance, telecoms, media, technology and services respondents expect significant increases in headcount."

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