RBS and Lloyds - the two big fixed income hirers of 2011?

Last year, it was UBS.

In 2010, the Swiss bank hired 420 people in FICC, of whom were 225 were MDs and EDs.

This year, the fixed income hiring prize apparently goes to RBS, with special plaudits to Lloyds.

"None of the big banks have done much in fixed income this year," says the head of one fixed income search boutique. "Bar RBS - and then Lloyds.

"RBS have been by far the most aggressive in the market," he adds.

This aggression doesn't seem to be reflected in the figures. Between the end of 2010 and the end of Q2 2011, RBS increased headcount by just 300 people. And earlier this month, John Hourican popped up in the Financial Times claiming that RBS's global banking and markets division could eliminate 2,000 jobs - or 10.5% of its total staff, more than any other bank so far.

Any fixed income hiring also comes despite a 13% year-on-year fall in RBS fixed income revenues in the first half of 2011.

Nevertheless, headhunters point to recent big name hires as evidence of RBS's fixed income enthusiasm. There was, for example, Guy Chalkley who was recruited last month on a reputedly generous package from Nomura as head of UK rates sales. Or there's Özgür Altuntas, who's just arrived from Morgan Stanley as head of sales and financial institutions from Turkey.

RBS was unable to immediately comment on its zeal for fixed income recruiting this year. However, another fixed income headhunter who works with RBS, said there hasn't been that much going on really.

"There's not really hiring in volume," he says. "They've let go or lost far more people than they've hired."

Future RBS fixed income hires are expected to cover UK real money sales and Scandinavian markets.

And then there's Lloyds

Also hiring in fixed income is Lloyds' wholesale division.

Lloyds announced a strategic review of its wholesale business in July and simultaneously poached Nathan Bostock from RBS as chief executive of wholesale banking.

Bostock, the son of an academic applied mathematician specialising in game theory, is rumoured to be building Lloyds' fixed income capabilities.

"Everyone thought Antonio Horta-Osorio would pull back from wholesale banking, but then he hired Bostock, who loves markets," says another headhunter. In February, Lloyds hired

Richard Hitchcox as head of flow rates sales from Credit Suisse. It's also hired Cameron Wright from Nomura.

It seems slightly ill-timed that the two British state owned banks are hiring fixed income professionals precisely as revenues in fixed income prove chimerical, but headhunters insist this is no bad thing.

"RBS and Lloyds have pretty much had the [hiring] market to themselves this year," says one. "It's been the perfect time for them to pick people up. The last thing RBS to do is to compete for people with JPMorgan or Morgan Stanley."