Financial services IT hiring requirements remain steady – but lower than 2010 levels

Financial services IT hiring requirements remain steady – but lower than 2010 levels

Hiring for both contract and permanent roles has remained steady when compared with the first quarter of 2011 but volumes are, unsurprisingly still significantly down on the boom times of 2010. That’s according to the latest IT recruitment report from specialist financial services recruiter, McGregor Boyall.

Laurie Boyall, Managing Director at McGregor Boyall said: “Our findings indicate that the market has now evened out in terms of recovery and that the rapid growth we saw last year has stabilised.”

The results showed that the highest number of vacancies were within risk, representing 16% of all IT requirements received.. The report also revealed that 40% of all requirements were within development, with a particular need for those with Java and C# experience.

Boyall added: “With the recent Independent Banking Commission report calling for a ring fencing of retail and investment banking operations, it seems likely that even more regulatory reform will take place. Once the report has been finalised, we are likely to see financial institutions having to rethink some of their IT strategies. This will inevitably lead to a renewed spike in the demand for IT specialists – particularly contractors – to work on large-scale projects which will be driven by compliance and risk issues, rather than investment in new systems. ”