Front office IT roles are emerging again, but it's two new recruits for every three departures
Whisper it, but for all the talk of investment banks only hiring for regulatory related IT projects, there are finally some signs of new front office tech roles.
IT innovation in the front office has been hampered this year, as banks are forced to direct more of their tech budgets towards mandatory regulatory and back office projects.
However, as Reuters pointed out recently, banks are increasingly showing interest in collaborating on these regulatory projects to free up more cash for more innovative investment. Investing in the back office is unlikely to give them a competitive edge, after all.
There are signs that this is starting to translate into hiring. Recruiters suggest that Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan and Standard Chartered have a number of roles related to the front office, as well as smaller institutions such as Standard Bank.
Some headhunters are cynical about the reasons for any new hiring in the front office, however. Not only have planned numbers of recruits for the first half of 2012 decreased by over 50% since the end of last year, but there's actually a net decrease in headcount, suggests one recruiter.
"We're being told that any front office hiring is being done on a three out-two in basis," he says. "Redundancies and attrition reduce headcount, and then once things have settled down, managers are looking to bring in higher calibre new hires."
However, fact that any roles are emerging at all is seen as a more positive indicator than the first two months of the year.
"There's a continued push among investment banks to invest in e-Commerce platforms, including more complex products, which is starting to create an appetite to recruit," says Paul Bennie, director of IT in finance headhunters Bennie MacLean.
"Senior technology managers are again willing to have conversations about projects and programmes in the front office and, while it's been slow to feed through to significant hiring, a few roles are emerging again," adds Andrew Keene, director of IT recruiters Thomson Keene.
