With bonuses waning, banks are struggling to maintain technologists' interest

If you're a technologist with dwindling hopes of a significant bonus, little in the way of innovation or independence and shaky job prospects, would you still be inclined stick around in the financial sector? Many are choosing not to.

Financial technology jobs are slowly losing their allure; longer working hours, smaller pay packets and a lack of prestige in the role is prompting many to look at options in other industries, says Wall Street & Technology.

Disillusionment is also slowly taking hold in the IT ranks of the City, suggest specialist recruiters.

"People in relatively senior IT roles have now gone two years with zero bonus," says one financial services technology headhunter. "Technologists are not primarily motivated by money, but now that remuneration is smaller, people are beginning to question their reasons for continuing to work in the financial sector."

At the more extreme end technologists are making sideways moves into telecom, pharmaceuticals and high tech. As we've pointed to previously, the likes of Google and Facebook are winning out in the battle for graduate technologists, and investment banks recruitment timeline for IT places is becoming ever longer.

A less drastic move is to look at the roles within consultancies who offer technology services to the investment banks. To some extent, they're feeling the benefit of banks' reluctance to hire – rather than permanent headcount or contractors, banks have instead been drafting in external consultancies, the cost of which doesn't fall under recruitment budgets.

One such consultancy to start building its headcount on the back of this increased workload was Excelian. As we pointed to previously, it was looking to grow its IT headcount by 25% towards the end of last year.

Neil Gourlay, partner, capital markets practice at Excelian, says that the firm's primary focus is still trying to attract people with strong technology backgrounds from the telcoms and pharma industries – where the pay is 30-40% lower – and then train them up in financial markets knowledge.

However, technologists from investment banks are looking at consultancies for reasons other than money, he says.

"As a technologist within an investment bank, you're very much at the beck and call of the business, and very often there's little in the way of intellectual or technical freedom of thought – those in the business often impart what solution they want you to implement," he says. "If you're working in a consultancy, very often the banks transfer that innovation responsibility to us, and that diversity of work is a big selling point."

The range of work on offer within a consultancy, boutique or start-up is often a key reason why people leave the financial cushion of working for an investment bank.

Sumant Gupta, who left Barclays Capital to work for small fixed income brokerage iTB Securities, told Wall Street & Technology: "You can be doing the same thing for 15 to 20 years on Wall Street. Yes, it's exciting and pays well, but this allows you to do many different things. You get to be involved in everything, from product design to figuring out how to measure progress to who your strategic partners will be - all the aspects of being an entrepreneur."