UK banking vacancies at record levels despite Brexit

Vacancies in the UK's financial services sector reached record levels over the summer, according to a new report, suggesting that vacancies are likely to grow even more amid continued growth, despite the effects of Brexit and the pandemic.

UK Banking Vacancies Surge Despite BREXIT

David Sapsted

8 October 2021

Vacancies in the UK's financial services sector reached record levels over the summer, according to a new report. Data compiled by recruitment consultancy Morgan McKinley and labour market analytics company Vacancysoft suggested that vacancies were likely to grow even more amid continued growth, despite the effects of Brexit and the pandemic.The report showed that, in June, the number of new banking jobs passed the 5,000 mark for the first time, continued to grow in July and reached 5,763 in August.By the end of this year, the report suggests that hiring levels will be up by 44% compared to 2019. In London, firms published 2,804 professional banking vacancies in August, with vacancies appearing likely to finish 2021 up by 30% on 2019.

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Risk and compliance specialists in demand

The report said that most of the new UK banking jobs published are for risk and compliance specialists. Professional hiring for these experts made up 12.8% of all banking vacancies — up 1.3 percentage points on 2019. Risk and compliance departments were als found to be recruiting at a faster rate than others, growing 61% across the UK.Broken down by specific risk and compliance roles, AML/KYC/Financial Crime specialists were the most sought-after across the UK, with vacancies for this function projected to finish 82% higher than two years earlier.

'Candidate-led jobs market'

In a statement, Morgan McKinley's Leo Bellometti, Senior Consultant Compliance and Risk, and Ben Harris, Head of Governance, said, “As institutions adjusted to video interviews and remote onboarding, recruitment plans changed in May 2020. This continued throughout 2021 with risk and compliance vacancies in banking and financial services projected to rise by 61% by the end of 2021 versus 2019 and 2020 levels.“Busy areas in compliance and risk include: compliance advisory, financial crime/AML, surveillance and monitoring and credit risk. This has been caused by the easing of government lockdown measures, and in turn with banks initially having made cuts to their staff, they now need people to join their teams again."The recruitment market has turned to become a candidate-led market with candidates having multiple different options on the go which requires institutions to move quickly when hiring.”

Big names recruiting heavily

The report said that the leading recruiter for risk and compliance specialists in the UK was Citi with 633 vacancies published so far in 2021, constituting a 92% increase on 2020 and a "massive" 489% rise on 2019. Risk control jobs at Citi rose from nine vacancies in 2019 to nearly 250 in 2021.JPMorgan published the second-most number of R&C jobs, with recruitment levels up 192% on 2020 and 215% on 2019.