Why you may wish to consider working for the European Investment Bank

If you're looking for a stable, if not overly-exciting, career path then you could do worse than look towards the European Investment Bank (EIB).

Developments over this week suggest, at the very least, the EIB is likely to be decidedly busier over the next few years. Firstly, there's its reported involvement in a European Commission scheme to invest €50bn (44bn) in infrastructure projects. Then, there's the fact that it's been handed a new mandate to lend outside of the EU into places as diverse as Cambodia, Iceland and Iraq.

There's certainly, therefore, scope for recruitment within the Luxembourg-based organisation in the future. However, 2010 was a year of expansion for EIB, in which employee numbers increased by 8.7%, to around 1,870.

Since the beginning of the year, this figure has increased to around 2,000. But the EIB is not sheltered from current market conditions, and has previously outlined plans to be more prudent with its liquid assets.

A spokesperson confirms that it's now being relatively cautious on hiring, with much of it focused on replacement recruitment.

The bank also tells us that it offers opportunities "covering a range of professions" and recruits people from a variety of backgrounds including "corporate bankers, with experience in origination, credit, risk management monitoring and restructuring, lawyers, economists and engineers".

The EIB has also previously stated that it needs to increase headcount around financial monitoring to ensure that it's in line with "the growth in volume, complexity and evolution of the outstanding loan portfolio".

Obviously, new job opportunities for bankers are relatively scarce currently and prospects look shaky in the immediate future. So, making a move to somewhere like the EIB would no doubt be driven by a desire for security rather than financial gain.

The average salary at the EIB last year was €110k (96.5k), which is not astronomical, but certainly not to be sniffed at. This, of course, is an average and a more detailed breakdown of what salaries you can expect in different job roles can be found here.

What's more, salary costs increased by 12.5% last year, which is a bigger jump than them percentage rise in headcount during the period.