Financial services job market index – September 2024

Financial services job market index – September 2024

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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:

• This represents a modest setback in demand for F.S. talent, which will be disappointing to Candidates and Recruiters – coming as it does in a month where volumes typically trend upwards coming off the back of the traditionally slower summer months
• It’s a mixed bag of results however, with significant falls in Insurance (19%) and Information services (11%) being partially offset by a pick-up in Investment Management(9%) and Wealth & Private Banking (4%).
• Once again, this month has come in exactly flat compared to the same time last year after being down Year-on-Year every month since Q4 2022.
• October will hopefully give us a better showing – otherwise the year is at risk of flatlining after a promising start.

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 +9%
Insurance: General, Life, Reinsurance, Broking -19%
Wealth & Private Banking +4%
Fintech: Banking, Lending, Payments, Insurtech, Crowdfunding +3%
Information Services: Data Providers, Ratings Agencies, Risk -11%