The number of jobs in financial services in London has continued to decline, with the amount of new vacancies in the second quarter falling by 25 per cent compared with the same period last year.
The rise of offshoring in the sector, the impact of Brexit as well as slower economic growth in the UK and elsewhere have prompted a long-lasting slowdown in hiring in financial services.
According to the recruitment consultancy Morgan McKinley’s London employment monitor, there was a 9 per cent decrease in financial job vacancies quarter on quarter in London, while vacancies were down by a quarter compared with last year. In the first quarter of the year, there was a 33 per cent decline in jobs available year on year.
The job adverts that Morgan McKinley monitors are primarily for mid and back-office staff at banks, private equity firms and hedge funds among other businesses in the financial services sector.
David Leithead, chief operating officer of Morgan McKinley UK, said: “Specialist skills clearly remain in demand, and some functions are expanding. Compliance and risk management functions, for example, remain critically important.
“Some parts of the sector are flourishing, there are always some companies in a growth phase, but the overall picture is one of caution, leading to tight management of budgets, and often a first position of do more with less.”
Leithead added that the outlook for the job market in the financial services sector in London remained uncertain. However, a separate survey by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation found that employers across London intended to hire more staff in both the short and long term.
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The trade body found that London employers’ intention to increase permanent employees in the short term was much greater than for the rest of the UK, with a net 33.2 level of surveyed respondents in the capital saying they planned to hire in the next three months versus 18.4 for the rest of the UK.
It added that employers in London were more likely to increase their permanent headcount in the next 4 to 12 months, with a net outlook of 35.3 for the capital versus 15.3 for the UK overall.
London employers are also far more inclined to “increase greatly” their headcount of permanent employees in the short term, with 29.3 per cent of respondents in London versus 6.9 per cent for the UK as a whole.
The same proportion — 29.3 per cent — of London employers said they would “increase greatly” their permanent headcount in the medium term, compared with only 4.7 per cent for the UK level.
Recruitment and Employment Confederation members added that there was increased demand for permanent workers with skills in the accounting, construction and engineering sectors. The hotel and catering sector, IT and computing and nursing industries also have recorded a rise in demand for workers.
