Barclays Wealth continues Scottish IT hiring spree

Since Barclays Wealth arrived in Glasgow to set up its operations and technology division in 2007, it's been recruiting aggressively in Scotland's biggest city. It's just recruited 11 senior staff for a new technology venture, and there's more to come.

The firm has created 199 new roles in Glasgow in 2008 alone, taking the number employed in its technology division to 218. The new hires are to focus on developing an infrastructure hub, which is to address the ever-changing needs of Barclays Wealth clients.

Among the new appointments is Iain MacGillivray as technology director. He joins from UBS, where he was executive director for all fixed income, currencies and commodities IT in Asia-Pacific.

Malcolm Macallan, director of technology at Barclays Wealth, says the new appointments "will help us develop our capacity and more effectively support the business as it continues to expand".

The bank pledged to create 850 roles across its four offices in Glasgow by 2009, within technology, HR, finance and operations. It currently has 670 members of staff.

While other areas of finance have started to trim their technology budgets in the face of market turbulence, wealth managers have actually been spending more. According to IT consultancy Celent, wealth managers will have spent $1.7bn globally on technology by the end of this year, which marks a 14% increase on 2007.

But according to Yves Amer, senior consultant at IT finance recruiters McGregor Boyall, wealth managers are not generally diving in taking on developers. Instead, they are thinking strategically about their IT needs.

"They're still using relatively archaic technologies," he says. "Wealth managers are looking at long-term strategy and therefore the majority of positions are for business analysts, project managers and programme managers."

Of the 38 technology roles currently open within Barclays Wealth, 20 of them are based in Glasgow. They range from business analysts to head of security operations.