Financial services job market index – November 2025

Financial services job market index – November 2025

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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:

• Once again, this represents a disappointing performance in what is traditionally the last month in which we usually see a bounce back from the summer recess, and underlines the fact that UK FS hiring is still in the doldrums.
• The biggest risers this month were Fintech(+14%) and Wealth & Private Banking (+7%) and Insurance (7%) with notable increases at the likes of Revolut, Transferwise, Hargreaves Lansdowne, AXA and Hiscox.
• However, this was somewhat offset by a drop off in demand from Banking & Markets (-3%) and Investment Management (-3%), with Goldman Sachs, Citi and Fidelity slowing down more than most.
• In terms of Year-on-Year results – the overall index is up 16% versus this time last year, which has shortened from 20% last month. The bottom line is that the FS job market in general continues to be marginally less flat than 2024, without showing any significant signs of expansion.

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) -3%
Investment management: Asset Management, Alternatives -3%
Insurance: General, Life, Reinsurance, Broking +7%
Wealth & Private Banking: +7%
Fintech: Banking, Lending, Payments, Insurtech, Crowdfunding +17%
Information Services: Data Providers, Ratings Agencies, Risk +3%