There seem to be really mixed messages out there at present - lots of firms seem to be thriving and recruiting really aggressively. But then can consulting really be escaping any fall-out from the credit crunch and the barrage of doomsday headlines we&apos;ve been seeing? So I thought I&apos;d turn to you our readers for the definitive view. Let me know your thoughts on the following 3 questions and the results of the poll will appear on screen when you hit submit. Hopefully we can get a couple of hundred responses this month and get a really good picture of what the UK consulting market is doing... <a href=http://www.top-consultant.com/state_of_market.htm target=_blank>Take part in 1 minute survey</a>P.S. feel free to post replies to this message to share anecdotal evidence as well - either than the market is collapsing or that it&apos;s very much business as usual at your firm... Thanks for participating. Tony Restell Top-Consultant.com

There&apos;s a degree of caution in the air, as like any consultancy we&apos;re never more than a few months away from new work drying up. But for now projects seem to be being signed off without too much problem. The odd delay creeping in, but nothing to freak anyone out that the bottom is about to fall out of the market!

Keep your eye on the FTSE 100 index - if that tanks then consulting firms&apos; client work will soon start drying up; but all the while we remain above 6,000 there should just be a modest slowdown rather than an outright collapse. The mass-redundancies of the dot-com crash are still far from making a comeback

Hi, it&apos;s a very interesting survey for anyone but i don&apos;t think that everyone should be able to fill it.Personnaly I am a grad student so I don&apos;t see the point why i can answer this survey.regards

Michael - then don&apos;t fill it in.As regards your question Tony - there&apos;s a lot of caution out there with firms keen not to overextend themselves like they did in the dot-com era. More caution now means less of a correction needed if the market really does turn sour. But for now it doesn&apos;t seem to be. Richard

It seems to me that the rate of new job creation has fallen off dramatically. Anecdotally, I am seeing a lot of stagnant job postings. These are roles that have been advertised/periodically readvertised for about six months. It seems like the business impetus to fill these posts has fallen off, and they are being left open to hedge bets or in case of snagging some ultra-special candidate. There does not seem to much appetite for hiring.This tallies with the large numbers of benched and underutilised staff I am seeing across a wide range of firms. This time last year, firms would not have been granting leaves of absence, even unpaid ones, but right now I know three people within my personal circle who have essentially walked away from work with their firms&apos; blessings.

I&apos;d agree. This time last year utilisation had gone so high it was almost off the chart - taking holiday, fitting in training, etc. was a real challenge. Right now there are far more consultants on the bench and taking holiday is no problem at all. Speaks volumes

It&apos;s hard to call the market with any certainty yet, on the one hand &apos;good&apos; consultants are still be offered lots of work/roles, on the other hand those perceived as less impactful are being moved to Government etc work quickly.The CEO&apos;s comment was &apos;that there are some difficult choices to be made ahead&apos;, what these will mean in reality for folk &apos;at the coal face&apos; remains to be seen; maybe less bonus, freebies, may no real differences at all yet...

I&apos;ve heard a number of instances of HR dragging their feet in terms of progressing candidates through the interview process and / or delaying start dates - which sounds to me like firms being uncertain about the amount of work they might have in the coming months and therefore the degree of spare capacity they&apos;ve already got? Anyone else aware of this going on?

Interesting results so far. It seems 2/3 of you have seen some slowdown in recruitment compared to last year; whilst 39% have seen an increase in the number of consultants on the bench. So no suggestion there&apos;s a collapse taking place, but clearly some slackening of demand is feeding through from the problems in the credit markets.Do keep contributing - the more response we get the more robust this temperature check of the market will be!<a href=http://www.top-consultant.com/state_of_market.htm target=_blank>Take the 1 minute survey here</a>Thanks, Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

Getting nervous yet Tony?!

Not as yet - just come out of the MCA&apos;s annual briefing on growth figures for the consulting industry and the UK market&apos;s still growing at a healthy 10%. That&apos;s down on the figures we&apos;ve seen in recent years but hardly the sort of figure you&apos;d associate with a sector in crisis!Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

A healthy 10% ?I wonder how sustainable 10% are. At some point the market is going to be saturated. How many knowledge workers do you need to change a light bulb?I think stagnation is definite but that is not catastrophic it is just "back to reality".

What would happen if a third of all management consultants were made redundant tomorrow?

Compared with 10% growth during this last year, the previous year saw growth of 16% and the year prior to that 13%. So there&apos;s clearly been an impact - and this coming year only 6-7% growth is being forecast. But this is a far cry from the collapse the industry saw in the dot-com recession.The expectation of the firms was that recruitment would continue but just at a less aggressive pace than in the last couple of years - and this seems to tally with your survey responses via the above poll...Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com