The City recruitment market remained relatively buoyant during October as financial services firms turned to new compliance professionals to address fears over increasingly aggressive fines from the Financial Services Authority (FSA).
More than 700 of the 5,231 new City jobs created in October were in compliance, control and risk, according to financial services recruitment firm Astbury Marsden. This drove a slight increase of 1% on the 5,157 City jobs created in September.
Demand for regulatory reporting roles has really taken off in the last few months, according to Astbury Marsden, which pointed to one institution that has an outstanding requirement for 30 staff in the regulatory and liquidity monitoring field.
Mark Cameron, chief operating officer at Astbury Marsden, said: “The hiring of back and middle office staff has continued to power ahead and most of these are directly related to compliance, product control, regulatory and liquidity reporting roles.
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“We are being told by clients that a lot of these new jobs are being created because the FSA is still taking such an aggressive line on fining organisations that they perceive have gaps in their systems and controls.”
The FSA handed down a record £33.1 million in fines in the 12 months to March 31 2010, up 21% on the previous year’s record-breaking £27.3 million.
