Scotland's financial services firms want newly-qualified accountants again

Good news for newly-qualified accountants looking to break into financial services in Scotland - firms have regained their appetite to recruit.

There have been scant reasons for cheer among the junior accountancy profession north of the border for the last couple of years, with few firms looking to recruit to any significant degree. However, things have changed dramatically in recent months.

"Quite simply it's night and day compared to this time last year," says Mark Wilson, managing consultant at recruiters Hudson in Scotland. "In particular, a large number of roles have been released by financial services firms, which have a lot more visibility about their recruitment requirements across a range of functions currently."

In particular, recruitment sources point to roles being created within Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland and BlackRock. There's also demand for accountants from new players like Virgin Money and Tesco Finance, suggest recruiters.

"There's been a good degree of optimism for newly-qualified accountants within financial services for a few months now, but we're beginning to see reasonable demand for experienced hires again," says John Docherty, managing consultant, accounting and finance at Change Recruitment in Edinburgh. "This is as a result of established and new financial services firms hiring again."

There are also reasons to believe that opportunities for accountants within practice are beginning to emerge again.

During its annual results presentation, Scottish accountancy firm Johnston Carmichael pointed to additional recruitment in Edinburgh and Glasgow, as well as the possibility of moving into new areas. This followed a 10% jump in fee income.

And, as we've alluded to previously, the Big Four accountancy firms have begun to hire again north of the border.

A newly qualified accountant working in financial services can expect to earn 33-40k depending on the job role, according to recruiters.