Cost Of Living: Can A New Job Solve The Problem?
Escalating costs are leaving many of us out of pocket. A new piece of research from networking group People Like Us and Censuswide has revealed that spiraling costs are affecting a huge segment of the UK workforce. Forty-nine percent of workers say they are now living from pay cheque to pay cheque, and 53% say they now can’t put anything aside in savings every month.
The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 9% in the 12 months to April 2022, up from 7% in March, and according to the Office for National Statistics, 88% of adults in Great Britain reported an increase in their cost of living in May this year.
A recent survey from GMB Union of more than 2,300 workers across all sectors reported that 41% of respondents agreed that they “have had to borrow money to cover essentials from banks, payday lenders, or family and friends in the last six months”.
“We face the perfect storm of wages plummeting as prices shoot up. It’s a disaster for workers,” says Gary Smith, GMB General Secretary. In the US, the situation is similar. A survey by peer-to-peer lending company LendingClub found that among those who took part, 61% reported living paycheck-to-paycheck in April, a 9% increase from a year ago.
In May, Rachel Maclean, the Tory MP for Redditch, caused a furore when she told Sky News that, “Over the long-term we need to have a plan to grow the economy and make sure that people are able to protect themselves better – whether that is by taking on more hours or moving to a better-paid job.” Her advice was branded as “ludicrous” by Labour shadow cabinet minister Ian Murray, and “out of touch” by Wendy Chamberlain of the Liberal Democrats.
The reality is that for many it won’t be possible to simply level up into a higher-paying job or take more on. For some workers with the right skills, a job move could be an option. For those in the tech industry, things are still looking buoyant. Jobs in the broader digital tech economy now account for around 14% of the UK workforce at 4.7m people, says Tech Nation. They’re not all technical either: more than 36% of jobs in the sector are in non-tech occupations, such as Product Management, User Experience, People, and Sales.
So, if you’re looking for a new role, we have three to consider below – and as always, plenty more opportunities to discover on the City A.M. Job Board.
Senior Communications Manager, Airbnb
The Role: Based in London, the Senior Communications Manager will tell the Airbnb story in the UK and Ireland. You will manage a team of two junior managers and work alongside a cross-functional team from public policy, marketing, legal and sales to showcase the benefits of sharing your home and traveling on Airbnb.
The Responsibilities: You’ll use your experience across consumer, corporate and policy communications to develop integrated, cross-functional communications strategies.
Requirements: You’ll be university educated with more than 10 years’ of experience in communications or a related field. Excellent writing and strong verbal communications skills are required.
More on the Senior Communications Manager job is available as are other opportunities at Airbnb.
Software Engineer, Codat
The Role: Codat is looking for a Software Engineer to help with business analysis, writing tests and code, and operating the components the team will own.
The Responsibilities: All engineers have end-to-end responsibility and are involved from early on in the product design process. You’ll be encouraged to be innovative and always thinking about the best ways to give value to Codat’s clients.
The Requirements: A mix of technologies are in use at Codat; most are services supplied by Azure and leveraged using C#, if you are up-to-date with C# and have an interest in design patterns, that’s a plus. Knowledge of ASP.NET and REST APIs is really helpful too.
Find out more about the Software Engineer role or check out other opportunities at Codat.
Senior CRM Executive – Financial Services, John Lewis & Partners
The Role: As Senior CRM Executive you will be responsible for delivering the CRM contact strategy for John Lewis Financial Services, managing campaigns from creative brief through to building, sending and performance reporting against defined benchmarks.
The Responsibilities: You’ll ensure communications are delivered accurately and on time across multiple channels, testing and optimising campaigns to deliver great performance, as well as manage end-to-end briefing and execution of campaigns and monitor and report on campaign results and KPIs to drive insight and optimise accordingly.
The Requirements: You will need previous CRM experience, working with customer data to build audiences, as well as demonstrable experience in designing and running CRM, email and direct marketing campaigns. Salesforce Marketing Cloud experience is desirable, but other equivalent ESP experience will be considered.
Find out more about the Senior CRM Executive job or browse other openings at John Lewis & Partners