Unexpected areas of recruitment within Ireland's funds industry

Ireland's funds industry is recruiting again, but not in the areas you might expect.

State Street's Irish operation has only recently filed its 2009 annual report, which shows that - despite an overall period of retraction for the industry - it increased headcount by 171. Average pay per head did, however, fall from €83.1k in 2008 to €72.5k last year.

And figures from the Irish Funds Industry Association also suggest that 2009 wasn't that bad for the sector and job numbers so far in 2010 have been on the up. The vast majority of these are within fund accounting.

So, where are the jobs? In terms of companies the larger players like State Street, BNY Mellon, Brown Brothers Harriman and JP Morgan have been hiring, but so have more boutique firms such as GlobeOp and Citco, according to recruiters.

It seems obvious that with the proliferation of 'Newcits' funds and the aid of new regulation, fund accountants with hedge fund expertise would be in demand. They are, but this isn't the real hot spot.

"There's been a real focus on recruiting people within transfer agency functions in recent months," says Patrick Kelly, senior manager at Lincoln Search & Selection. "There's also been a big demand for business analysts as fund administrators enhance their in-house IT systems."

In arguably more exciting areas of the business, the need to compete for new business has spurred a need for fund administration firms to hire for client facing roles.

"Client relationship functions were scaled back as fund administration firms battled asset outflows," says Paul O'Reilly, senior consultant - banking and financial services at Robert Walters in Ireland. "Now that they're taking on new business again, firms are short-staffed and need to recruit."