Five roles surviving the summer lull

We've just entered August, a month when financial services recruitment is traditionally quieter than a church mouse convention. But some roles remain in demand.

Based on conversations with various financial services recruiters, here's five roles that are still particularly active.

1) Equity research

Equities generally remains an area a number of banks are looking to expand, but potentially expensive bonus buyouts are discouraging a number of firms from recruiting for sales and trading roles, according to headhunters.

With variable compensation typically more diminutive in research roles, and banks needing to bolster this function, hiring is persisting.

Deutsche Bank, HSBC, SocGen, Citi, Macquarie and RBS are currently in the market for research staff, according to recruiters.

"While we are seeing mandates emerge for equity sales and trading roles, these are fairly sporadic, but research remains a particular area of focus for a number of institutions, both bulge bracket and boutique," says Jonathan Evans, chairman at Sammons Associates.

2) Product control

The pick up in demand for product control only started towards the end of the first quarter, but as yet it's is showing no sign of stopping.

Neil Owen, director of Robert Half Financial Services Group, says: "Demand for product controllers has continued throughout the summer. There's always a limited supply of candidates for these roles, but a combination of expansion and turnover means it's currently a real challenge for banks to find the right people."

3) Prime Broking

Both Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley flagged prime broking as an area of future growth during their Q2 results, and recruiters tell us that HSBC and Nomura are still hiring in this area. In particular, according to reports in HFM Week, capital introduction roles are in demand, with BarCap, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and Goldman all currently hiring for these roles.

"Firms are currently recruiting for capital introduction, sales and product development roles," confirms Andrew Morland, who focuses on prime broking recruitment at Pelham International. "However, with senior hires deemed expensive as we move later in the year, there is a growing interest in basic salary only moves."

4) Middle office roles within asset management

Sentiment around asset management recruitment generally has picked up recently, with hiring increasing by 20% in the first half of this year, according to pre-employment screening firm Powerchex.

While there are signs this has been within the front office to some extent, it's more likely that the majority of recruitment has been focused around support functions.

"Virtually every asset manager is looking for good middle office people, whether that's portfolio administration, client reporting or fund management assistant," says Jalpa Chandarana, manager of investment management recruitment at Joslin Rowe.

As well as pressure around client reporting, fund managers are also battling a raft of regulatory requirements, which is driving recruitment in the middle office.

"The demand for risk managers, compliance and audit staff is growing as regulations force asset managers to strengthen their teams," Pars Purewal, head of UK asset management at PricewaterhouseCoopers told the FT.

5) Change management

Change management roles have been hot for some time now, after the raft of merger activity in the financial sector during the last 18 months. However, this demand shows no sign of abating and the pool of people with relevant skill-sets is still very shallow.

"The change management roles have evolved from simply integrating systems and processes, to enhancement and improvement to take them to the next level," suggests Ben Cowan, contract director at recruiters Astbury Marsden.

"There is significant need to ramp up change management and project management teams," adds Matthew Crawford, manager - senior finance at Robert Walters. "Firms continue to identify people from a very small pool of candidates with wildly varying degrees of project management and subject expertise."