By Jason Atkinson, Russam MD

I was pleased to see this week that 55% of our Interim Managers are now positive or neutral about the state of the market for assignments.

That’s up from 45% in June, when a record 55% told us they were negative.

So, are we seeing a “Burnham Bounce”?

Probably too early to say. But something has definitely shifted.  We have previously seen that Interim Managers can feel pessimistic while clients are still hiring them for assignments. But optimism has been hard to come by — and, as you’ll see from our climate survey below, sentiment has been something of a roller-coaster ride.

Some mixed signals from the wider market

The wider employment market is still sending some pretty mixed signals.

The latest ONS figures show vacancies falling to 707,000, their lowest level outside the Covid period since 2014. Smaller businesses remain cautious about recruitment, with higher employment costs continuing to weigh on hiring.

But the latest KPMG/REC data is beginning to look more encouraging. Permanent hiring appears to be stabilising after 45 consecutive months of decline, while temporary billings remain relatively strong, with four consecutive months of positive movement.

And at Russam Interim, we have seen the number of projects in the last 180 days increase by 8% compared with the previous 180 days.

So perhaps the question isn’t:

“Is the market recovering?”

Perhaps it is:

“What is the market recovering into?”

Russam climate survey

With a bit of help from AI, I’ve looked back at the trends from our bi-monthly climate research over the last five years.

Year	Market mood	What changed?
2022	🟢 Strong	Post-Covid disruption, transformation and skills shortages created strong demand for Interim Managers
2023	🔴 Deteriorating	Economic uncertainty began to translate into fewer assignments
2024	🟢 → 🔴	A stronger start gave way to a significant market slowdown
2025	🟠 Difficult / mixed	Clients became more cautious and selective, with assignments increasingly focused on change and specialist expertise
2026	🟠 → 🟢?	For the first time in a while, sentiment appears to be turning upwards

The obvious question is: where is the work actually coming from?

Where is the work?

Looking at Russam Interim assignments over the last three months gives us a useful clue.

Key trend	% of assignments	What it suggests
Finance	26%	Finance is the largest single area of interim demand, particularly CFO/FD and senior finance expertise
Board / Leadership	22%	Strong demand for CEOs, MDs and senior operational/business leadership
Financial Services	22%	One of our strongest sectors, with a notable concentration in payments and fintech
Fractional roles	22%+	Fractional executive leadership is becoming a significant part of the interim proposition
Charities & NFP	19%	A strong sector for senior leadership, CFO and CEO assignments
HR	15%	Meaningful demand, increasingly linked to transformation and technology
Operations	15%	Continuing demand for operational improvement, delivery and transformation

The pattern is striking.

Finance and senior leadership remain at the heart of the market, but we’re also seeing strong demand across Financial Services, fintech, HR, operations and technology.

For example, I’m currently working on an Interim CHRO role for a global FMCG company. But the essence of the role is technology change, cultural alignment and implementation. They need a tried and tested Interim leader; it is taking the organisation into a new world.

And perhaps most interestingly, more than one in five of our assignments are now fractional.

This doesn’t look like a market simply replacing permanent vacancies with Interim Managers.

The changing nature of interim work

My feeling is that the nature of interim work is changing.  In the post-Covid years, the model was often:

Vacancy → Interim Manager → Stabilise → Permanent appointment

Increasingly, we’re seeing something different:

Problem / opportunity → Specialist executive capability → Deliver outcome → Leave

That’s an important distinction.

A business doesn’t necessarily need to have a vacancy to need an Interim Manager.

It might need someone to:

• turn around a business
• deliver a transformation
• implement new technology and AI
• navigate regulation
• accelerate growth
• strengthen finance
• improve operational performance
• or provide experienced leadership through a difficult period.

In other words, the Interim Manager is increasingly being bought for what they can achieve, rather than simply the vacancy they can cover.

That makes the market much less dependent on conventional “interim vacancies”.

And I think that is potentially a very important shift.

So, is September 2026 a turning point?

I don’t know yet.

But the data is beginning to suggest that something is changing.  Sentiment is improving. Interim demand remains resilient. Our own project numbers are up. And, perhaps most importantly, the nature of the assignments we’re seeing is changing.