The weather has made a dramatic turn for the better in London, and if you’re looking for a front office job in a bank, it seems that your prospects may also have improved. Not just in London, but globally.
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The latest figures from market intelligence provider Coalition Greenwich, for the first quarter of 2024, show global front office headcount at major banks increased marginally in Q1. However, the increase was entirely in fixed income sales and trading.
Greenwich Coalition tracks front office headcount at 12 banks: Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Wells Fargo, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, SocGen and UBS. In the first three months of 2024, it says they increased their collective global front office headcount from 46,500 to 47,000. Headcount fell by 100 people in the investment banking division (M&A, ECM and DCM) and rose by 600 people in fixed income sales and trading.
This marks an improvement on Greenwich Coalition’s previous observations of headcount trends. In 2022, it said that front office headcount at the banks it tracks fell by 500 people. In 2023, another 600 jobs disappeared. Things are looking up.
Fixed income headhunters tell us they’ve seen the sun. “Tier one banks have seen some relief from hiring freezes and tier two and three banks are being far more opportunistic and strategic about hiring,” says Tom Bury, managing director of search firm Odin Partners in Singapore. Flow credit hiring has been slower than macro, says Bury. Macro hiring is being driven by rates bets and geopolitical concerns in a year when multiple major economies are holding elections.
In London and New York, macro headhunters point to changes in rates teams at the likes of Citi, Deutsche Bank and Nomura, but question whether these amount to net new hiring. “There’s a steady drip of two or three people moving a week on rates desks,” says one. “- Sales hiring is now picking up, but it’s mostly backfilling.” Citi is expected to make a senior hire: Kieran Higgins, its former head of flow rates trading, has moved into financing; Pedro Goldbaum, its former head of rates, reappeared at Deutsche; it has a gap at the top.
In investment banking and M&A sentiment is more mixed. Deutsche Bank has been hiring heavily and Unicredit and Santander are hiring, but Tom Ragland at US based recruiter Harrison Rush Group says hiring across the market is mostly focused at managing director (MD) level and that junior hiring remains slow. In London, one investment banking headhunter says things are definitely better than last year, but that he’s really holding out for 2025.
Too much excitement may be premature. JPMorgan indicated at its investor day in last month that it’s halving front office hiring spending to $100m this year. Even in the comparatively active area of fixed income, Bury says hiring is still tenuous. Headcount approvals are still arduous and banks are sometimes getting cold feet. “The hiring window for some tier one banks appears to closing again almost as fast as it opens,” he observes. Line managers are taking a “use it or lose it” approach as a result. If someone offers you a new job, you may not want to deliberate too long about whether to take it.
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