Market Insights 2018 | Financial Services, London

The London financial services Market Insight Report covers the following areas (click to view salaries):

• Banking and Financial Markets
• Corporate Finance & Transactional Services
• Insurance
• Private Equity & Investment Management
• Compliance
• Real Estate
• Part Qualified & Transactional
• Risk
• Regulatory

Banking & Financial Markets

The temp banking market should remain steady throughout the course of 2018, although we do expect an influx of contract roles dependant on the Brexit agreement and what operations get moved in accordance to these regulations. New roles tend to be focused on the UK ring-fencing project deadline.Many of these are recruited for by internal resources as in-house knowledge is required, however some are also released to agency. The process driven control roles in banking continue to move off and near shore, however as salaries begin to come in line with the UK, we may start to see some of the control based roles returning to the UK.

Corporate Finance & Transactional Services

The overall corporate finance and transactional services market has been on the up since Q4 2017. The majority of our clients have sought to hire across all levels of their M&A and advisory teams.The mid-market space has grown steadily since the Brexit vote and this is expected to continue for the year ahead.The majority of industries have remained steady in terms of their global deals footprint, with solid growth in the technology, consumer and healthcare spaces.The general consensus and market statistics show that the next 12 months will bring more growth to the corporate finance and transactional space. The positive global economic trends and new US corporate tax cuts, which allow for greater flexibility for acquisitions, will lead to larger amounts of junior analyst and associate hires across industries.

Insurance

2017 was an uncertain year for the insurance market mainly due to Brexit implications still hanging in the balance and a less than decisive result in the general election. Therefore, opportunities tapered off toward the end of last year. Mergers and industry consolidation saw a rise in people looking for career moves. Where internal moves have not been possible, redundancies have been a common outcome. These trends resulted in a candidate heavy market.

Private Equity & Investment Management

Recruitment levels in the various subsectors which make up investment management have remained strong, despite a continually challenging socio economic environment at home and abroad.Private equity finance recruitment remains healthy, and as in previous years, up to now has been dominated by the fund finance side. However, with various regulatory and tax changes on the horizon, the corporate accounting market is also expanding.Optimism is creeping back into the asset management market, although there are still significant challenges to be overcome - active vs passive fees, FCA scrutiny, Mifid II, Robo-advisers and technology change to name a few. Given the high levels of permanent recruitment, along with increased market activity such as fundraising, the need for swift backfills and flexible support has remained constant.

Compliance

We have a conservative outlook for the compliance sector overall in 2018. We do expect to see further growth in demand for regulatory compliance specialists within the alternative investment and FinTech industries. However, many larger banks may persevere in meeting their needs with existing resource or perhaps by relying on support from regional or offshore sites.

Real Estate

Overall, an optimistic outlook prevails throughout most of Europe’s property industry, with evidence of high levels of investment over the past 12 months, and the experts expect European economic growth to improve over the next five years.

Part Qualified & Transactional

2017 was a very positive year across the transactional and part qualified space for both permanent and interim roles.We expect the part qualified market to remain strong throughout this year. It will continue to be candidate driven and clients who are able to turn around a robust recruitment process in one or two weeks will have the best chance of securing top talent.

Risk

We have seen a steady increase in risk management roles this year, mainly due to regulatory requirements and banks implementing ring fencing across retail, corporate and investment banking operations.We expect the risk market to see continued steady growth over 2018, with hiring driven mainly by regulatory requirements. Once more clarity around Brexit emerges, organisations are likely to turn their attention to emerging risks, using the risk function to drive commerciality.

Regulatory

The demand for specialist regulatory accountants in banking and capital markets is still dominant, with the insurance and investment management markets showing a slow increase.Where regulatory reporting as a function is more prevalent in banking than in, for example, insurance, capital markets or investment management, the majority of smaller businesses have been outsourcing their regulatory requirements to specialist consulting firms. Most reporting functions are fairly stable but with the introduction of Basel 4 and the fundamental review of the trading book coming in, we should see a spike again this year. The current slowdown has also resulted in stagnated pay rates simply due to demand slowing down.

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