Financial services job market index – January 2026

Financial services job market index – January 2026

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Executive Summary

There is no silver bullet when it comes to measuring demand in the U.K. financial services job market.

Over the years we have looked at everything from indices from recruitment agencies, aggregated job board data as well as government/ONS data. All of them are useful indicators but fail to offer an accurate reflection of what’s happening across Financial Services as well as individual and significant sub-sectors.

The City Career LAB & Rialto job market index captures data directly from corporate careers sites as a way of measuring jobs activity – specifically demand. It’s not perfect, but is perhaps the most accurate indicator of hiring demand in the U.K. financial services jobs market.

Each month we collect and analyse data from a broad and diverse basket of handpicked employers that represent a particular sub-sector of Financial Services in the U.K. These results which include all permanent and fixed term contract positions across all functions of the chosen organisations will be published on our website and LinkedIn – to show and explain the direction of the hiring market(s) from month to month.

Our observations this month include:

• It’s good to start the year with some strong numbers, even if they are to be expected at this time of year. That said – recent years have produced some very flat Januarys.
• There was one solitary faller this month across the sub sectors – with Investment Management down by 2%.
• Amongst the risers, Information Services (14%), Banking & Markets (14%) and Wealth & Private Banking (17%) saw the biggest uplifts.
• In terms of Year-on-Year results – the index has started the year 15% up on where it started last year – indicating a more positive hiring environment. The next few months will confirm whether ort not this is a false flag.

As a reminder – the Job Market Index is intended to be the most accurate read on hiring demand in the UK financial services sector.

The indicators show:

Banking & Markets: Corporate & Investment Banking, Markets, Securities Services (excl. Consumer/retail) +14%
Investment management: Asset Management, Alternatives -2%
Insurance: General, Life, Reinsurance, Broking +4%
Wealth & Private Banking: +17%
Fintech: Banking, Lending, Payments, Insurtech, Crowdfunding +4%
Information Services: Data Providers, Ratings Agencies, Risk +14%