Five sweet spots in the Irish financial jobs market

After nearly a year of gloom surrounding Ireland's financial services jobs market, there are some glimmers of hope beginning to emerge and May was the busiest month of the year so far. However, the jobs that are being created are increasingly niche.

"If you compare the financial jobs market to 12 months ago, it's still very slow," says Letrecia Tippett, regional director of Premier, which takes a monthly temperature of the Irish employment market. "But it's picked up in comparison to the last four months."

Indeed, the number of vacancies in May was still down 67% on the same time last year.

But if there are jobs to be had, where are they cropping up?

Broking: While Ireland's stockbrokers were making redundancies as recently as two months ago, Premier says there have been some jobs created recently. Specifically, these roles are for business development executives, corporate broking as well as more administrative claims and complaints roles.

Life and pensions: Tippett says they've seen an upswing in senior operations and customer service roles within the life and pensions market. There's also a need for revenue generators, although these people are being hired on a commission-only basis.

Banking: Shhhh, perhaps the hiring freeze within Ireland's banks is not entirely universal. Premier says there's been an increase in the number of compliance and credit risk roles in the last month. "This has been spoken about for some time, but it's only in May that we've seen these roles actually being created," says Tippett.

Boutique fund administrators: Specifically, those focusing on hedge fund administration. The smaller funds have seen an inflow of new business recently and have regained their appetite to hire, but they're still being "very cautious", so don't expect a proliferation of these roles.

Senior financial accountants: Finance managers or financial controllers with financial services experience who can expect to earn between €70-120k are seeing their services in demand, but employers are being incredibly choosy. Tippett says it's "100% or they won't consider them".

A recent poll by Finance Dublin echoed this mood of relative good cheer, with William Slattery, managing director of State Street in Ireland, saying there could actually be a net increase in job numbers within the IFSC by the end of 2009.