With vacancies in the banking and finance sector rising to 129% in the last year, there has been a significant push to hire new people, according to recruiters Morgan McKinley and Vacancysoft.
In London, recruiters are searching for 96% more roles than they were looking for this time last year, highlighting the potential talent pool of the capital city. JPMorgan sought to hire 5,330 new bankers last year, followed by Wall Street giant Citi who added 4,000 roles in 2021.
“The perceptions that Brexit would impact the job market seem largely misplaced,” writes City AM.
“Maybe Brexit led to temporary changes or bankers looking to take up other opportunities in Europe or the US, but this has not caused as many people to move away from the UK as they previously thought. Thus, highlighting the role that the banking sector is still generating top jobs in the UK.”
“The sector provides high-quality jobs, pays significant amounts of tax and drives investment across other parts of the economy. Firms are continuing to invest and expand their operations, both here in London as well as in other cities up and down the country.”
Ben Sweiry of US lender Dime Alley commented that: “Yes, the drive for new bankers and analysts in the City and Wall Street is apparent, but it may also reflect the number of people who have chosen a work-life balance during the covid pandemic, rather than enduring the long and intense hours often associated with working in banking and finance.”
“It is therefore no surprise that investment banks have been offered the highest salaries to new graduates and attractive perks such as meals on site and afternoon ice cream as an incentive. With covid measures relaxing and banks now ‘getting on with Brexit,’ there are now lots of new banking jobs available.”
“However the stock market has really underperformed lately, and this may not be consistent with the optimism in hiring lots of new staff - so it will be interesting to see how the next few years with covid and Brexit manifest.”