Safest £100k job in finance attracts 70 students per position

Which £100k finance-related jobs are the safest in the City of London now? Discounting UBS, which says it's stopped firing people from its investment bank, they're almost certainly at the regulator. The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will be at the forefront of changes as the country extricates itself from the European Union. Even before the Brexit vote it's been busy adding staff.

The FCA's annual report for 2015/2016, released today, reveals that the regulator increased its headcount by 8% in the year ending March 2016, adding 257 people.

50 of these were student entrants who joined the FCA's graduate training programme. The regulator said 3,426 graduates applied for these 50 positions, giving it an acceptance rate of just 1.5% or 70 applicants per role. In this sense, the FCA looks even harder to get into than Goldman Sachs.

It's not difficult to see why. As well as offering an unusual amount of job security, the regulator doesn't pay too badly. In the 2015/2016 financial year, mean average pay at the regulator was close to £100k (£99k to be precise). Median pay was lower, at £65k.

And if you want one of those 50 graduate jobs at the FCA? As ever, it helps to be academically brilliant. Recent hires to the FCA's 'graduate associate' programme include students with first class degrees from Cambridge, Cardiff and Exeter Universities. It might also help to study the new MSc in Financial Regulation at Henley Business School, which is provided in conjunction with the FCA.

Photo credit: afhunta