Technology:
There is still a sustained demand for talent in the UK buy-side technology market. Clients work from home policies were the norm and more clients are expecting their employees to be in the office at least 3 days a week. We have still seen a continued demand for individuals who have Azure or AWS experience as technology teams in the buy side move towards cloud based development. There is still a continued demand for Front Office Java/Python Developers, where clients are scaling up technology teams with polyglot Developers, as they can create different applications the business can utilise.
The market for technologists is competitive for clients as there is less talent flowing in from outside of the UK pushing up salaries and day rates. We’ve seen a huge shift from clients moving towards more bespoke builds rather than using third-party vendor tools.
The contract market has slowed down and clients are wanting to bring in more junior permanent employees that are willing to learn and pick up new skills. More contractors are willing to move into a permanent role due to the fear of having lengthy gaps on their CVs.
The market is still highly candidate driven where active candidates are involved in multiple processes and have the luxury of picking the opportunities with the best packages. That being said speed still seems to be the key from the client side. Clients who are taking longer in their decision making process are missing out on top talent simply due to the market demand.
Change:
We have noted that over the past months a lot of our clients have kicked off internal projects to design their internal ESG policies, come up with plans on how to integrate it to the overall processes and build capability and capacity for ESG. Data is a major factor in ESG transformation and we have seen increased demand for Business Analysts with Data transformation experience to work as part of these ESG programmes.
In terms of the role profiles, we have seen similar trends to previous quarters with a focus on mid-level Business Analysts and Project Managers, but also SMEs in specific areas.
Having said that, the agile transformation has truly come into effect across the market, with many firms favouring hiring for Product Managers/Owners, moving away from the traditional BA / PM.
Asset managers are still going through large internal change, looking at their operating models and using people with consultancy experience (Alpha FMC, EY, KPMG, PWC) to deliver this change to their business.
Technology and digitalisation are two very important aspects that majority of financial institutions have started to prioritise in order to drive down their costs as well as better serve their clients and consumers. We have noticed an increased demand in Tech projects and Digital Transformation kicking off across more traditional financial institutions, particularly because they were heavily relying on old legacy systems, which now need changing to keep up with the development of technology but also to ensure that they retain market share.
Many contract/temporary roles have seen a rise in day rates due to the fact clients are having to try different ways in attracting talent. Day rates have risen by £50 per day on average, partly due to IR35 changes still taking effect on an established market, but also to force candidates into moving projects.