Salaries rise 30% as banks scramble for support staff

Goldman Sachs, UBS, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are scrambling to hire hundreds of support staff to meet sharp rises in fixed income and equities trading. The move has sent salaries up 30% in a year.

The banks have been advertising for staff across their European equities and fixed income businesses. JP Morgan is planning to hire up to 100 in equities and fixed income within seven months.

Kirstin Duffy of recruitment firm Morgan McKinley, leading JP Morgan's search, said: "Most major US and European houses are recruiting across the board in operations and looking for similar numbers of people."

A JP Morgan spokeswoman said: "The hires are based on the increase in business volumes and business growth that we have seen and which we anticipate continuing."

Middle office staff, who prepare marketing and legal documents to support colleagues in sales and trading, are in strong demand after three years of cutbacks and redundancies. Banks cut back middle office numbers by up to 50% during the downturn which started in 2001 and have only recently approved budgets to increase staff.

The surge has lead to higher salary expectations for middle office staff - especially those in the derivates sector. They can expect to earn up to 30% more than a year ago. An operations manager in equity or credit derivatives can now expect to earn up to 110,000 (€165,000) a year. Project managers now earn up to 75,000.

Michele Bloomfield, associate director at Joslin Rowe Associates which is leading Morgan Stanley's search for operations staff said: "Since the beginning of 2004 we have witnessed a massive increase in activity within the market place.

"Hiring has increased within all product areas generally, but particularly within derivatives and the business analysis or project management arena," she said.

Demand for middle office staff comes at a time that banks are busy beefing up their sales and trading desks in areas they expect to grow over the next two year - including credit and equity derivatives. UK banks including Barclays Capital, Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC are among banks hiring aggressively.