eFinancialCareers

The proliferation of fund accounting jobs in Scotland is creating a fluid recruitment environment where people are skipping speedily from one job to the next.

The past year has seen expansions by BNP Paribas, JP Morgan, State Street, Citi, and BlackRock in the fund accounting space in Scotland, and difficulty finding candidates – together with candidates’ own realisation of their worth – has created a revolving door effect.

“Everybody’s recruiting and retention is an issue,” says one HR manager working for an international bank in Scotland. “You have to recruit in numbers, but by the time you’ve taken on two or three, the same number have left so you’re back where you started.”

Colin Grieve, managing consultant at Head Resourcing in Edinburgh says: “You have a circle of organisations in Scotland who essentially do the same thing. You therefore have a limited pool of talent and candidates will move around for an extra grand or two on their salaries.”

Bearing in mind that the average fund junior fund accountant in Scotland earns £20k-25k, eagerness to skip to higher paying pastures new is not much of a surprise.

Fraser McMillan, senior consultant at Robert Half, says the competitive market means firms often take on people with little or no experience: “It does seem to be an area where firms might take a punt on less experienced candidates,” he says.

Richard Park, country manager, Scotland at recruiters Martin Ward Anderson, reckons there’s also fluidity between all the major fund admin centres like Dublin, Edinburgh, Luxembourg and London, but he says the poaching could soon stop north of the border.

“We may just be at the peak and though going forward there might be as many jobs, they won’t be as difficult to fill. There is an element of training going here and there will also be more people coming up from London if there is a slowdown there.”

The good news is, once fund accountants get some experience under their belt, then tend to stay put, according to Paul Aldred, manager, Morgan McKinley Edinburgh: “Any movement typically requires substantial salary increases,” he says.