If you’re struggling to get a job in financial services, that’s a shame. In London, the industry is now easier to get into than it has been for a while.
At least this is what we conclude from looking back at the historical figures provided by recruitment firm Morgan McKinley. This is the 10 year anniversary of Morgan McKinley’s monthly ‘Employment Monitor’ tracking new jobs and new candidates. Morgan McKinley has released two charts of its own for the occasion. We’ve also formulated our own chart based upon Morgan McKinley’s (frequently amended) figures over the years.
Chart one, from Morgan McKinley suggests the ratio of financial services incumbents (people already in jobs) to financial services job seekers is at it’s highest level for the past 10 years. From this we conclude that if you already have a job you’re lucky, and that a surprisingly small proportion of people either want to move between financial services jobs or to move into the industry. Finance workers are staying put.
Chart one: New financial services job seekers in London vs. existing financial services jobs in London
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Chart two, also from Morgan McKinley, shows the number of new financial services jobs that have been created on a monthly basis since 2005. On this basis, the current climate for job seekers doesn’t look too hot: new jobs fell to an all time low at the start of 2013. They recovered a bit in 2014, but not by much.
Chart two: Financial services jobs new to the market
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The third chart, created by us and based upon our own carefully collated record of Morgan McKinley’s figures over the decade, is the most relevant if you’re looking for a financial services job now. Showing the number of new financial services candidates per financial services job, it suggests that it was about as easy to find a new job in November 2014 as it was in November 2005: in both months there were 1.1 candidates per new job. The worst time to find a new financial services job in recent history looks like November 2011, when four new candidates were chasing every new role.
Naturally, Morgan McKinley’s figures aren’t infallible. For each month, the really relevant statistic would be the total number of financial services candidates – new and existing – chasing the total number of financial services jobs. Unfortunately, this isn’t provided.
