FINANCIAL SERVICES VACANCIES – YEAR ON YEAR COMPARISON MAY INDICATE RECOVERY CEILING

FINANCIAL SERVICES VACANCIES – YEAR ON YEAR COMPARISON MAY INDICATE RECOVERY ‘CEILING’

While obviously a market cannot carry on recovering forever, the first quarter of 10 may well have been the high point in the investment banking IT recruitment market – a high point which may not be surpassed in the foreseeable future.  That’s according to the latest regular survey of the financial services recruitment market by specialist recruiter, McGregor Boyall.

“Comparisons between the first quarter of 10 and 11 appear to confirm the market view that vacancies are down by an average of just over 17%,” said Managing Director Laurie Boyall.  “But this masks other underlying trends – permanent vacancies are actually down 26.6% year on year while contract requirements have only fallen by just over 5%.”

Additionally, Boyall adds that for non-IT hiring within niche areas such as risk, regulatory change and compliance, permanent vacancies are also down by just under 28% but contract requirements in these areas have risen year on year by just under 17% reflecting the ever evolving regulatory environment of the financial markets.

“We believe that there may be an increasing trend towards pure technologists moving away from London – or even the UK whereas change specialists and business analysts as well as compliance and risk professionals, will remain close to their revenue generating colleagues.  This change is also being reflected in the profile of our own revenue streams.  While historically we have been known as financial services IT recruiter, over a third of our business is now derived from non IT recruitment, a proportion that is continuing to grow.”