So far, technology recruitment has been a non-starter

If the dawn of 2010 was marked by a new, vociferous appetite for recruiting techies into investment banks, this year has so far been, well, distinctly underwhelming.

Traditionally, by this point in the new year recruiters in the financial technology sector usually have a good idea of the banks' hiring priorities for the first half, but so far January has been something of a non-starter.

"It's been eerily quiet, and hardly any banks have come forward with clear and distinct hiring plans," says one financial technology headhunter.

Two exceptions are JP Morgan (as we alluded to earlier) and Barclays Capital, suggests the recruiter, but even here the number of roles is healthy, rather than plentiful as they would normally expect at this point in the year.

"From a technology perspective, we've usually gathered an idea of what the hiring priorities are for the coming year by the end of December, but so far there's little visibility," bemoans another IT in finance headhunter. "We're tying off a few loose ends, closing candidates that were in the process of recruitment last year, but there's been little in the way of planning at the top of the technology tree. It's been frustrating."

It could be, of course, that after a year of relatively active recruitment, banks are merely taking stock of their new legions of techies. But also there's a chance this could be more worrying if you're in the market for a new job.

Technology budgets in the financial sector are tipped to rise again this year, but by relatively small margins of around 3.2%, according to research from Gartner.

The majority of this is always taken up by mandatory maintenance work, but budgets are also being stretched by the need to invest in technology to comply with the raft of new regulations hitting the financial sector. Front office investment could suffer as a result.

There could be a simpler explanation - the usual timings have been knocked back by a week thanks to some US banks changing their year-ends. Goldman and Morgan Stanley previous had fiscal year-ends in December, but now report this week.

After bonuses are paid, over the course of the next two weeks, more solid hiring plans are likely to be formulated.

"Usually there's two layers of recruitment, the holes to fill in the post-bonus landscape and the planned, strategic hiring. Sadly, the latter hasn't been forthcoming," adds another IT in finance recruiter.