eFinancialCareers

Education, education, education. The skills shortage in the Scottish financial services market has prompted action at a grass roots level, and its targets are getting younger. The Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland (CIOBS) offers a Certificate in Financial Services in schools, which looks to fast-track pupils into a financial career and is now on its second intake of students. The class of 2006 were the guinea pigs, but last year... Read more

What will be hot and what will not in the coming 12 months? Here’s our verdict… 2008 will be a good year for… Corporate finance The bare statistics don’t make comforting reading. Preliminary figures from insider.co.uk suggest Scottish-only corporate finance deals were a mere £1.44bn in the third quarter of 2007 – down from £5bn for the same period in 2006. However, while the mid-market may have suffered, corporate finance professionals remain convinced that... Read more

What was hot and what was not in Scotland in 2007? Here’s our considered verdict… 2007 was a good year for… Fund management Fund managers in Scotland were defiantly bullish this year: the battle for talent intensified, top names engaged in a game of musical chairs, and profits and revenues increased. Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP), for example, lost its chief executive John Phillips in January, and its head of European equities went to... Read more

In Scotland’s candidate-driven market, is it time to speed up the recruitment process or risk missing out on talent? The typical recruitment process in financial services firms takes at least six weeks, during which time candidates can easily have multiple offers on the table. Existing employers are also likely to counter-offer in a bid to hold on to scarce talent, say recruiters. Fraser McMillan, senior consultant at Robert Half, says: “We don’t... Read more

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... Read more

Insurance underwriters in Scotland have seen big salary hikes in the last year, as a shortage of candidates drives demand. The latest salary survey by recruiter Joslin Rowe paints a different picture from last year, when broker mergers meant insurers were more likely to lose their jobs than land a large pay rise. But with new firms setting up in Scotland this year – such as Ace Insurance which created 200 jobs... Read more

Scottish financial services workers are more in the dark about their bonuses than any other country, according to our survey. The eFinancialCareers.com global survey, which took in responses from 18,000 financial services professionals worldwide, revealed that a huge 47.4% of Scottish respondents don’t know whether to expect a higher or lower bonus this year. Meanwhile 34.6% anticipate more money than last year, and 17.9% expect to see a slide. The respondents were spread... Read more

The gloves are off in the Scottish fund management industry, as newcomers to Edinburgh have sparked a war for talent. “There’s a lot of poaching going on – it’s a dog-eat-dog world. The cosy deal that once existed in Scotland where they wouldn’t touch each other’s people has long since been ripped up,” says one headhunter in the region. The traditional culture of loyalty in the fund management industry harks back to... Read more

Scotland may have been left relatively unscathed by the credit crunch, but analysts advise financial services employees to watch their back (office). Merrill Lynch has revealed that it is to axe 65 jobs in its Mortgages Plc division in Glasgow, and with other banks with back-office units in the city posting losses, could this herald more redundancies? “I think generally there is a poor visibility at the moment in the markets,... Read more

Glasgow has aspirations to compete as a financial centre, but will its back-office focus leave it wanting on the global stage? In a recent ranking of global financial centres, Edinburgh scraped into the top 20, but the report’s authors say they have received numerous requests for Glasgow to be added to the mix. Michael Mainelli, one of the report's authors from Z/Yen Group, says: “Some people think that it has the potential... Read more

Newly qualified accountants in Scotland are in the privileged position of being able to cherry-pick the best roles, such is the current demand for their services. A report by recruiter Joslin Rowe is the second in as many months to suggest the financial services industry in Scotland is thriving to the extent that roles simply cannot be filled. New permanent roles have rocketed up over the past 12 months by nearly 43%,... Read more

Scotland’s financial sector continues to boom. But where are all the people to fill the jobs? The most recent Bank of Scotland survey of the Scottish labour market, published in October, reveals finance and accounting employers are facing acute skills shortages – they rank second behind engineering and construction as finding it hardest to fill roles. The gaping hole in the supply of talent might be down to the fact that Scotland... Read more

Is Edinburgh a world-leading financial centre (and commensurately good place to develop your career)? Only just. The city has slipped five places in a survey of top financial centres, but scraped into the top 20 cities in the world. In the second report from the Global Financial Centres Index, commissioned by the City of London Corporation, Edinburgh ranked 20th out of 50 centres, down from 15th in a survey earlier this year. The... Read more

Forget cash, it’s the right corporate culture that Scottish financial services employees want. In contrast to their money-hungry counterparts south of the border, 88% of financial services workers in Scotland rate an organisation’s culture as more important than remuneration, according to a survey by recruiters Badenoch & Clark. Margaret Hare, recruitment consultant at Qualitas in Scotland, says: “I would say that we have seen a move towards candidates looking towards the more... Read more

Worried that investment banks culling staff in London will send a flood of City-slickers cap-in-hand to Scotland? Fear not. The Centre for Economic and Business Research’s forecast of 6,500 financial services job cuts in London have understandably left City workers hot under their pink collars. In light of this revelation, we asked our readers where they would go if they were to lose their jobs. A total of 1,070 responded and... Read more

With contemporary art prices rising 55% in the past year, Scotland’s private bankers would do well to know their Monet from their Manet. However, while London’s investment scene appears convinced of the benefits of art as an investment class (witness this week’s Frieze Art Fair, which is expected to raise £145m), Scotland may be falling behind. The Bank of Scotland is sadly lacking in art expertise at its private banking arm, while... Read more

Scottish financial services seems set to keep up its headcount when all about them may be cutting back. Gordon Arthur, interim of CEO Scottish Financial Enterprise, tells us, "A lot of the strength of the Scottish employment market has been driven by financial services. I do not think there is likely to be an impact from current market conditions." The reasoning behind such optimism is that financial services jobs in Scotland are... Read more

Employment in Scotland's financial services industry is booming, but jobs in the country are still mostly in the back office. According to a Bank of Scotland report released last month, business and financial services employment accounted for 65% of the net increase in Scottish jobs over the past five years. Fidelity is among those hiring – the fund management group recently poached David Urch from Scottish Widows to lead institutional UK equity... Read more