Why interim and temp legal hiring is moving faster than the market data suggests
LAW Absolute was the first legal recruitment agency in the UK to specialise in temporary legal recruitment. That long-standing focus offers a useful lens on what is currently happening in the in-house legal market.
January provides a clear illustration of this gap.
A review of UK in house legal roles publicly advertised on LinkedIn during January shows that approximately 92% were permanent positions, with only around 8% listed as fixed term or interim. On the surface, this suggests a market still firmly anchored in traditional permanent hiring models.
In practice, the reality is more nuanced.
What public data captures, and what it misses
Public job boards reflect what organisations are structurally comfortable advertising. Permanent roles are familiar, easier to justify internally, and sit neatly within established approval frameworks.
Interim and temporary hiring rarely operates in the same way. These decisions are often driven by urgency, delivery pressure, regulatory deadlines, or internal constraints that make public advertising impractical. As a result, a significant proportion of interim hiring activity happens quietly, through specialist networks rather than open market postings.
This distinction matters when interpreting the data.
What we are seeing in real hiring activity
Looking at our own in house legal work during January, the balance shifts materially. 62% of the roles we supported were permanent, while 38% were temporary or interim.
This is not an anomaly. It reflects how legal teams are increasingly choosing to address immediate business needs through flexible hiring solutions rather than waiting for permanent headcount to be approved. These decisions are rarely reactive. They are commercially pragmatic responses to timing, pressure, and uncertainty.
The public data is not inaccurate. It is simply incomplete.
Interim hiring as a strategic tool
Interim and temporary lawyers are no longer being used solely to cover short-term absences. Increasingly, they are deployed deliberately to:
- Maintain delivery during internal hiring freezes
- Support regulatory change and remediation programmes
- Manage spikes in workload or periods of transformation
- Create breathing space while permanent roles move through lengthy approval processes
In many cases, the greater commercial risk lies in delay rather than flexibility.
The importance of specialist interim support
Because interim hiring is time sensitive, it relies heavily on specialist recruitment networks. Generic advertising rarely delivers the speed or precision required. The most effective interim hires tend to be those introduced through targeted, relationship-led approaches, where candidates are positioned against a clearly defined business problem rather than a broad role description.
Specialist legal recruiters play an important role here, not simply by supplying candidates quickly, but by helping legal teams scope roles realistically and identify when interim support is the most appropriate solution.
A more pragmatic resourcing mindset
Permanent hiring remains essential and will continue to be the backbone of most in house legal teams. However, the teams operating most effectively in the current market are not treating permanent and interim hiring as mutually exclusive.
Instead, they are running them in parallel.
They are prioritising continuity of delivery, maintaining momentum, and responding to business needs in real time, rather than waiting for ideal conditions to emerge.
That flexibility is increasingly becoming a defining feature of well-resourced legal functions.
Closing perspective
The market data will continue to show a bias towards permanent hiring. That does not mean it reflects how work is actually getting done.
The real shift is happening quietly, through interim and temp solutions that allow legal teams to respond in real time rather than wait for perfect conditions.
For more information about working on an interim basis or hiring an interim lawyer, please contact Hayley Logue hlogue@lawabsolute.com
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