Reasons to believe fintech professionals shouldn't jump into risk IT
The argument runs something like this - European financial institutions remain laggards when it comes to investing in risk management technology, bountiful opportunities continue to emerge for a limited supply of techies which means salaries are on the up, and this is swaying more people across to work there.
However, salary increases are still failing to match those in more specialist front office IT roles.
New research from IT vendor Oracle is the latest in a long line to suggest that financial institutions are still lacking when it comes to getting their risk systems in order to meet regulatory demands. Just 18% of the 228 financial business and 222 IT professionals it surveyed reported an ability to deliver performance and risk information in real time, for instance.
This is not to say that financial institutions - particularly investment banks - are not making moves to address this. UBS, Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and J.P. Morgan are all currently recruiting for risk IT roles.
"There are a number of Greenfield IT projects around risk, which has created a surge in recruitment activity," suggests Darrell Cameron-Webb, head of investment banking at the JM Group.
Within the business, risk management salaries have increased by an average of 15-20% this year, according to recruiters PSD Group.
There's no comparable study specifically for risk IT roles, but generic development roles pay 60-70k, rising to 90-110k for more senior roles, according to various recruiters. This hasn't particularly increased over the last year, they suggest.
"Risk IT roles are seen as more important, and it's a tougher job now than it was, but banks still view it as middle office and are not bumping salaries significantly," says Dan Gallagher, manager of financial technology recruiters Cititec. "I can place a developer for 110k for a front office role, but this rate will only be paid for a project manager in risk."
In fact, while risk technology recruitment remains a comparatively healthy market, it's the more specialist front office IT roles that are witnessing more rapid salary escalations, suggests Paul Bennie, director of IT in finance recruiters Bennie MacLean.
"You need to demonstrate niche skills - such as those around commodities and FX - to receive a significant uptick," he says. "For example, a relatively junior commodities technologist who would have been on 70k 12 months ago, now earns 85k, and if they were to move the chances are they could receive 90-110k."
