Economic recovery is being spoken of tentatively and banks like Houlihan Lokey tell us they’ve hired their fill of restructuring specialists in Europe for the moment. Is the restructuring hiring boom a thing of the past? Maybe not.

Richard Fleming, UK restructuring leader at KPMG, says there’s still plenty of work to do.

"The last couple of months have been quieter across the industry, but we're in the eye of the storm," he says. "We start the next 12 months with much higher unemployment than the last year, mortgage rates will go back up so people have less cash, government spending is going to contract, and VAT is going back up. It's going to be a buoyant time for restructuring professionals for a good two to three years yet."

And Peter Greaves, partner, business recovery services at PricewaterhouseCoopers believes there's still a "heightened level of activity" which will continue even as we emerge from a recession.

But, are there any jobs? PwC hasn't recruited significant numbers to its 900-strong UK team since last year and Big Four firms were previously simply transferring people from 'cooler' areas of the business to the busier restructuring teams.

Nonetheless, Deloitte added 50 people to its reorganization services practice in May and Greaves says that both PwC and other large firms are looking to bolster their team with strategic senior hires. PwC, for instance, has just added Ian Anderson, formerly regional head of institutional recovery management at Citigroup, as a director in its restructuring team.

Elsewhere, Moelis & Co has hired three restructuring specialists - Daniel Gibney, Sean Scoggins and Francois Vidal - from Close Brothers, which also recently lost Gareth Davies to Greenhill.

"We recruit externally and transfer internally," adds Fleming. "We've taken big numbers of people from transaction services and corporate finance into our teams because they possess a lot of the relevant skill-sets."

Trish Stockbridge, consultant at restructuring and insolvency recruiter Commercial Finance People, says: "It is a busy time, but the majority of our work is coming from smaller accountancy firms and boutique banks who don't have sufficient resources to transfer people internally and have to recruit outside."