Navigating the Financial Services Job Market: Most Hired Roles & Future Insights

In case you missed it, we recently launched our Financial Services Hiring Trends Report which focuses on Digital, Technology, Change and Transformation hiring in the Financial Services sector. The Report delves into how hiring in 2024 compared to the previous year, how hiring demand was split across the UK and what the job market looked like across the financial services sector.

But what exactly were the most in demand and most hired roles in this sector, and what does this tell us about trends we can predict for the rest of the year?

Most Hired Roles

Software Engineer and Developer

Our data showed us that Software Engineer and Developer roles soared above Business Analysts as the most in demand roles for 2024. This is likely thanks to the significant investment We have seen this trend in action already during Q1 of 2025 by placing 42% more Developer roles than we have Business Analysts.

Business Analyst

The demand for Business Analysts has traditionally always been high in the financial sector thanks to companies looking to optimise their processes, improve efficiencies and integrate the latest technologies, and this was yet again the case in 2024.

Data Analyst

The role of Data Analysts remained essential as many financial services organisations searched for candidates who can turn huge amounts of data into actionable insights. As, data underpins the business strategies of many financial organisations moving forwards, this continued surge in demand is expected.

Data Engineer

As data-driven decision-making continued to take hold of businesses, there was a continued necessity for clean and well-structured data, especially among those companies in the financial services sector who are hoping to leverage AI tools. We therefore saw a huge growth in the demand for Data Engineers both on a permanent and interim basis in addition to a desire to grow their own data talent through innovative capability development models.

Hiring Predictions for 2025

In terms of hiring demand, I believe we can head into the rest of 2025 with a cautious optimism. Throughout the first few months of the year, we saw resourcing requirements for permanent hiring improve by 6% during Q1 of 2025 compared to Q4 2024 and contingent talent demand improve by 2%. Already a lot of our clients are expressing an interest in hiring in greater numbers this year, and a particular theme we are seeing is hiring for Artificial Intelligence skill sets. Many of our clients have indicated they are considering how this will impact their ways of working and how they can transform to successfully leverage any benefits AI may offer in a compliant and ethical manner.

I believe there will continue to be a strong demand for talent in the financial services space, particularly for data roles.

However, I do predict that employer preferences will start to shift away from a skill sets focus, and more towards the capability of candidates.

The word ‘Curiosity’ is coming up more and more frequently in discussions with Financial Services technology clients in relation to the type of person they would like to hire; be that permanent or non-permanent.  In a world where technological advancements are fast evolving, our clients want to hire adaptable talent with a hunger to learn and to have a keen interest in ‘Why’ and ‘What Value’ the products they are building will deliver to the end user; be that the end customer or colleagues.

Increasingly during our briefings for individuals and teams, our clients are looking for a baseline technical skillset but the adaptability of the candidate to grow.  This means that we not only need to select candidates for their skillset and background, but also for behavioural characteristics like aptitude and agility.

We are already advancing in this direction through our Sanderson Projects service and also our exclusive permanent campaigns whereby cognitive behavioural testing and behavioural interviewing are embedded into the selection process.

This approach will provide clients with an approach that promotes cultural fit and alignment to company values, and retention and satisfaction within their workforce into the future.

In addition to hiring for capability at the experienced end of the market, we are also seeing a ‘grow your own’ approach to talent for the future.  This is due to the rise in organisations identifying their future talent shortages and focusing on how they can prepare for this via capability development programmes in order to hire more junior, diverse and talented individuals, develop them in role and ensure they have the skills their teams need both now and into the future.

Next steps

Are you ready to find out more?

As we start Q2 and look to the summer, now is the time to start thinking about enhancing operational efficiencies, addressing your skills gaps and supporting the reskilling of your existing workforce with the right blend of permanent employees, contractors and consultancies.

Arm yourself with data including exact talent pool numbers, tenue statistics, gender breakdowns and regional hot spots for the roles discussed above by downloading a copy of our Financial Services Hiring Trends Annual Report via the short form below.

Have any further questions or considering how your business can get ahead of these predictions? Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me on [email protected]