If You're Looking for a Job in FinTech, Here Are the Skills Most in Demand

With Wall Street banks trimming their ranks, there is one sector financial markets firms still look toward to help them maintain their productivity during headcount reductions, and that's IT.

Now that financial services companies are handing out pink slips by the hundreds, tech has become more crucial than ever to investment banks, retail banks, fund managers, brokers and insurance firms, all of whom spend billions on technology and their tech teams to keep current on changes in business priorities, profitability and regulation.

Take the programming language SQL for example. Data streams in financial services are massive. So FinTech professionals need to excel at writing very fast queries to comb through the data effectively.

Moreover, SQL is the underlying language of Oracle and most Business Intelligence tools, which are critical in the financial world. Today, companies are looking to recruit market risk analysts, software developers and quant developers who all have SQL know-how.

Project management skills are so important that it's one of the most frequent requests in tech job postings. For project managers, they have to translate vision into objectives, requirements and tangible work projects for teams of developers and vendors. Bringing projects in on-time and on-budget can set an entire company apart - let alone the individual.

Core set of job skills in demand today

We did an analysis of eFinancialCareers job postings and a core set of tech skills has emerged as those most in demand today. Many involve speed, big data and critical business intelligence (as measured by eFinancialCareers job postings).

Here are the top 10 skills in demand for 2011.

1. C, C++, C#

2. SQL

3. Java/J2EE

4. Database Administrator

5. Project Manager

6. Unix

7. Linux

8. Oracle

9. Perl

10. Risk Management

So if you're an IT professional looking for a Wall Street job, polish your skills around speed, data and business intelligence. It could just give you the edge you need to stay ahead of the competition.