Legal tech masters—the most coveted skills in legal

The legal tech market has boomed, with investment into UK legal technology start-ups reaching £61m in 2018 alone—a dramatic rise from the £1.5m that was invested a mere five years ago. However, recruitment for this profession is proving challenging with new industry research, Solving the UK Skills Shortage–Technology, finding more than “70% of technology employers are experiencing skills shortages” in 2019.

But why, if this industry is hitting its prime, is there such a shortage in employees?

The legal tech boom

In speaking with Oliver Morris, director and co-owner of Picture More Ltd – Executive Search & Recruitment, he noted that the legal industry has in recent years been in the pursuit of driving efficiencies, leading to them to heavily invest in technology and attracting a higher level of growth.

With higher demands to do more with less, many are looking to peruse new innovative ways of working, keep up with the ever changing and modernising market—as well as other businesses—and give better value to their clients. Combining this with issues firms have around lack of time, knowledge and expertise, having legal tech businesses or devoted tech employees has seen the need for legal tech to rise to the top of the agenda.

Morris says that the demand for high-calibre tech specialists has skyrocketed, particularly for “new start-ups and SMEs provide vital in-house functions for larger firms”.

Skills shortages

Though as mentioned there is a bigger demand for this industry and more investment, the challenge currently faced is recruitment—in particular, recruiting those with the rig