The insurance and in-house legal markets have been “performing particularly well across the whole of the UK” over the past few months, according to James Batt, managing director of legal recruiter BCL Legal.

The company has also seen an increased need across various sectors including commercial, corporate, real estate, commercial litigation and employment.

However, as explored Recruiter’s legal sector focus, on p14 of the new edition of the magazine, out this week, the UK legal jobs market is as a whole relatively slow, although the need for overseas growth has seen merger and acquisition activity aplenty.

BCL placed 248 candidates across the first six months of 2012, up from 204 in the previous year. It also reports registering 3,741 legal professionals compared to 2,039 in the year before.