The rising salaries in FX technology

Mid-ranking IT professionals working in foreign exchange have received salary increases of up to 30k over the last two years as banks continue to indulge in a technology arms race in the sector.

Technology recruitment within investment banking has been comparatively quiet so far this year, but FX has maintained its status as a hiring hot spot.

Part of the reason is that traditionally smaller players have attempted to leverage IT to gain an advantage on the larger banks. They've been investing in low latency front office trading systems and trade processing technology, according to a recent white paper by business consultant Cognizant.

As the 2011 FX rankings from Euromoney show, there's been something of a shake-up in the league tables and some smaller players have gained a bigger market share.

"The simple fact is that the banks that are not willing to pay for FX IT staff will lose out," says one IT in finance recruiter. "At the VP level, which includes most project managers, salaries have increased from 90k to 120k over the last two years."

Still, a lot of the current opportunities are within the more established FX houses. BarCap is hiring Java and C++ developers for its 250-strong FX IT team, Citi has openings for developers and connectivity specialists for its front office FX IT division, while Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse are both recruiting techies for their Matrix and Merlin platforms respectively.

Recruiters say that BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan are also hiring.

The smaller players are, however, becoming more successful at luring FX IT talent across, suggests Paul Bennie, director of IT in finance recruiters Bennie MacLean.

"The feeling is that being in the chasing pack is a more exciting place to be," he says. "In order to catch up with the main players, your technology has to be better, and it's a more dynamic and entrepreneurial working environment."