E-Trading Technology

This year has seen financial markets continue to move an increasing percentage of trading volume away from traditional voice and discretionary trading into electronic trading avenues across a range of asset classes. Due to Electronic Trading’s dependence on Technology, Electronic Trading Technologists have been in high demand across Banks, Brokerages, Trading Houses (including HFT/Prop Houses) and also Exchanges and Software Houses. A number of banks have multi-year programmes to evolve their capability within the E-Trading space, using vendor infrastructure (from the software/hardware vendors) and integrating them with proprietary systems they are developing with a blend of OOO and Functional languages, which they hope will give them an extra competitive edge in the E-Trading arms race. Other banks that do not have an existing programme have initiated new strategies, and we are seeing new E-Trading Platforms being designed and built, ideally for use across a range of asset classes. Whilst there was a dip in their activity over the last couple of years, Trading Houses such as the High Frequency Trading/Prop Trading Houses, are again looking to grow and exploit the tricky regulatory landscape that banks are trying to navigate through (thanks to the likes of MiFiDII). Due to their smaller size and agility, they are able to constantly customise, tweak, and tune the performance of their latency sensitive systems, keeping them ahead of the competition. Exchanges and Software Vendors have been working hard to evolve their proposition to trading businesses and we have seen a rise in new firms started by ex-senior management from some of the big name investment banks and trading houses. They are able to offer platforms and products to make the trading process more efficient, to increase their capability to access electronic markets and to manage their risk effectively. The common requirements we are finding are across Open Source Development (with ability to build and evolve high distributed, real time trading systems) and Open Source Infrastructure/Trading System Engineers (focused on performance tuning and automation).

Other common searches we have engaged in include Technical Project/Product Managers & Technical (vendor specific) Business Analysts. There is a real shortage of top talent available as many technologists who in previous years have looked at the Trading world as an obvious career choice, are having their heads turned by start-ups, ecommerce and leading technology firms. As a result, salaries in the E-Trading space are buoyant and continuing to rise even whilst other areas of finance/banking are decreasing. We have no doubt this will continue to be an area of growth into 2016 and are in a continual process of mapping out strategies for clients in this highly competitive space in the market.

Software Development C#

Over the last three months, attention has fallen on very well educated, mid-level C# developers with mid-range experience, ideally coming off the back of a well-structured graduate scheme. The C# developers that fit these criteria are currently worth circa £65,000 at the top end with up to around 4 years of experience. Since so many clients are looking for this particular profile, there are plenty of options for candidates at this level in the market, leading to intense competition and clients having to act very quickly to protect their chances of bringing these candidates on-board. This said, there were plenty of quality candidates within this bracket looking at the beginning and mid-way through Q4, meaning that clients were advised to really focus on their employer branding and almost share responsibility of “selling the business” to these candidates. Hiring toward the more senior end was consistent throughout Q4, with the exception of December. There has also been an increase in the demand for developers with the capacity to work across both web and desktop environments, with businesses, especially those within banking looking to long-term strategies of migrating systems into the web environment. Going into Q1 of 2016 the development market is highly likely to go from strength to strength. Fund Managers will continue to hire, and start-ups will once again be able to

assess their position to hire and join into the fray as well. Additionally, banking clients will re-start the hiring process just in time for candidates coming off the back of bonus season looking to move onto fresh pastures. Competition will intensify for the best candidates but there will also be more traffic on the market. HTML and JavaScript will continue to grow in demand as businesses look to migrate systems onto the web platforms with many teams already prototyping and in R&D stages. Companies are having to, on occasion, outbid each other, especially since £2000-£3000 can mean a lot more to candidates at the junior end of the experience level. This said, there is also fierce competition from start-ups that are viewed as more “dynamic” by some junior candidates, especially when candidates are more tech than finance focused. A good graduate is currently worth up to £35,000 within a software house and even up to £45,000 in a fund or an investment bank. At the senior end, salaries have been capping at circa £80,000 for the VP level roles within investment banking but as usual the funds are paying a lot more, especially with some Proprietary Trading start-ups that have a big budget paying up to £120,000 for a pure developer with no managerial responsibilities. We’ve found several certain skillsets to be particularly in demand of late – Desktop – C# .NET WPF Multi-threading SQL Server seems to be almost universal at the minute, with multi-threading being a bonus. Web – C# ASP.NET MVC HTML5, CSS, JavaScript and Angular JS now taking over from Knockout. We have also noted that Reactive Extensions is something that is now popping up more often as a requirement. We have also noticed that, as well as required skills, diversity has become an important part of the hiring process. We have been given Diversity targets on several SLAs, and we’ve found it helpful to reiterate diversity policies at our clients in order to close deals and convince candidates to take a role.

Python Python developers are paid a lot more by comparison to C# developers. Someone with 2 years of commercial experience can command circa £60,000+. Only the absolute best junior C# Developers are in that range but most junior Python developers seem to asking for that amount, meaning that there is clearly a lot of confidence on their part, dictated by the short supply of quality python developers in the market space. Any Python developers that are on the market are not there for long and are generally very in tune with all relevant opportunities due to the smaller talent pool. Mainland Europe is always a good talent pool for Python due to its more widespread usage in the commercial space.

Development Market The development market has been much the same as the last quarter with a large emphasis from our clients on building web based UI’s for their stakeholders/ client base. Whether its IB’s building trader tools or funds building out portals for investors the real theme seems to be UX friendly UIs built in HTML5 and JavaScript – AngularJS/ ReactJS etc. Again this has been the theme for most of 2015 and it appears as though it will continue to be a growth area into 2016 as more and more clients look to adopt this tech now they can see the results of their competitors. We’ve also seen others adopt the ethos of having a centralised cross asset risk/ pricing system, for instance, BAML Quartz or JPM Athena, but not necessarily utilising the same technology (Python). We had a spike in demand for strong C++ and C# risk systems experts as a result of this, including a demand on the quantitative development side. Big Data continues to be in high demand from an architecture and development perspective. We have seen a shift in developers who specialised in ‘in-memory’ data technologies, (such as Coherence or Gemfire) towards Big Data technologies such as Hadoop, HIVE and Spark.

Scala, which is often hired in conjunction with big data is still in demand with those who have significant, commercial experience commanding high daily rates. Core Java has remained predictably steady and is still the OO language of choice for selected Greenfield projects and BAU hires within the investment banking arena. Day rates have remained stable and the market has slowed as we approach the end of Q4 with many having already turned their attentions toward budgets and plans for Q1/ Q2 2016.

Senior Appointments Over the summer, we saw a change in requirements from the Banking world, from technical professionals to Agile focused technical professionals. This requirement change saw the Banks expanding their horizons and looking for candidates outside the banking world/finance sector, however, agile candidates from companies such as Sky, Google and Microsoft may struggle to fully adapt straight away in the banks due to the strict regulations, but we shall see how that develops as the demand increases. The market is rich with roles such as Regulatory Change (due to the adoption of MIFID II), Business Change and Lean Process Improvement; this may be down to Banks pushing the streamlining across the business. The Change roles (Regulatory, Business and Process Improvement) at VP level were in high demand for most of the year, however, we are starting to see more Junior Project Manager roles within the Change space come to light, with businesses now looking to implement this across all levels. In the last few months we have also seen an increase of Risk, IT Security, Fraud Prevention and Cyber Resilience projects within the Finance Sector, we are expecting this to increase due to government issues and the prevention of cyber theft. Again, the banks are looking for candidates from all employment backgrounds. Q4 has continued the buoyant pattern seen throughout the year for hires in the Senior Appointment space.

Most hires have been heavily focused on the key areas within regulatory change, business change and risk, with most banks responding to the increasingly hostile regulatory environment (MiFID 2) by hiring large amounts of contractors, as well as moving current contractors and perm staff away from lower priority projects to bulk out these programmes. This has resulted in a fierce competition for top talent, especially in the BA space, where many of the most highly sought after contractors are now commanding substantially higher rates than they were 12 months ago. As would be expected in this space, many Programme Manager and Project Manager roles continued to be filled through existing networks. These more senior positions often tend to go to market when more niche technical/business knowledge is required, for example, trading platform knowledge, regulatory knowledge or development knowledge. One trend that has continued throughout the year into Q4 has been the industry wide drive to adopt agile practices into all areas of the business. As such, we have seen not only an increase in Agile Coaching positions, but also an increase in PM/BA requirements where Agile knowledge would be a key decision making factor. This is true of business change/front office roles as well as technology roles. As we move into the New Year, we are expecting to see continued hiring within the regulatory space, with most of the top firms already indicating they will be increasing team sizes to ensure their compliance. Outside of the regulatory world, Financial Crime/KYC remains a large priority, and there will no doubt be hiring within the Senior Appointment space for these types of programmes, alongside business change programmes such as divestment/structural reform as many of the top banks continue to strive to return to high profitability.

Business Analysis

2015 has continued the buoyant pattern seen throughout the year for hires in the Business Analyst market, with a slight drop towards Q4, where many clients have lost budget or, due to strategic changes put hiring on hold until the New Year, with the focus falling on other hires across development, support and testing. Most hires over the year have focused on the key areas within business change, regulatory change and risk. This has resulted in a fierce competition where many of the most highly sought after Business Analysts are now commanding substantially higher salaries than they were 12 months ago with many going contracting. One trend that has continued throughout 2015 has been the industry wide drive to adopt agile practices into all areas of the business, with many organisations combining Agile and Waterfall methodologies. This is particularly true with roles focused around business change/front office roles as well as technology roles. For 2016, we are expecting to see continued hiring within the regulatory space, with most of the top firms already indicating they will be increasing team sizes to ensure their compliance, with many banks looking to increase the amount of permanently employed employees within their team, as currently they are very contract heavy. Other than the expected regulatory-based Business Analysts, many companies are looking to ramp up on technology projects, therefore we expect in 2016 for business to be looking for Business Analysts with a strong technical background to help with both business process change and technology change with a focus around Digital and Mobile innovations.

Business Intelligence With more companies becoming aware of the importance of Business Intelligence as a strategic advantage 2015 has seen more focus on Data Warehousing solutions. With the use of the Microsoft Stack previously focused on SSIS and SSRS tools we see companies more focusing on the SSAS side, analysing the data that they hold to create a more

focused strategy for the business as a whole, and optimising the previously redundant data stored. In the financial sector particularly, there has been more of a focus on current customer data analysis to attract new customers, tailor the businesses’ service to each customer and retain current business. Data Warehouses have started to become commonplace and with the end user now having ever changing needs for complex data analysis and reporting Business Intelligence reporting tools such as Tableau and Qlikview have been developed for business reporting purposes to accommodate this new awareness. In terms of looking at the market from a recruiting perspective, candidates with more of a focus on SSAS in their CVs including Data Modelling and Cube Design are commanding higher salaries and are all keen to work on the latest versions of SQL Server. Recruitment at this time of the year is usually difficult with most candidates not looking to change until potentially the New Year, and in the financial services sector until bonuses are confirmed. The focus for data in 2016 is more towards Big Data solutions including Data Science, with Hadoop and SAS working together to make big data analytics more accessible. We also believe we will see more self-service analytics being accessible to more employees in an organisation, with companies now looking at the way people think as a key to hiring, and pushing analytical thinkers to the front of the line. Analytics will become more mobile and more technologies will become available to fill gaps. We believe companies will start to move away from the usual MS Stack and embrace more flexible stacks that will include new technologies such as Hadoop Accelerators, NoSQL data integration and IoT data Integration.

Production Support Within the support market, the trend over the year has been for a more pro-active approach. This has remained to be case in Q4, and support is dedicated on monitoring incident themes and therefore be able to pinpoint the source of a problem, instead of focusing on resolving its symptoms. Companies are exploring different avenues towards this goal; most are focusing on hiring more

technical support specialists, while some are even restructuring their support and development teams into a joint Dev Ops department. A result of this new focus is that the need for Financial Product knowledge is becoming less of a priority, with many believing it is a more trainable part of a role than the inert pro-active attitude and technical abilities. This overall trend has meant that the successful candidates need to have stronger core technology backgrounds, usually with a large focus on UNIX and Linux platforms. With these skillsets, ability to use database tools for SQL and/or Oracle has been highly advantageous, and the ability to utilise scripts (Bash, Perl, Python) for automation of tasks even more so. Other sought after skillsets include monitoring tools such as Geneos and Nagios, Exchange Connectivity applications and other niche applications that are dependent within certain areas. As demand has grown for more technical support specialists, the candidate pool has decreased because the right candidate will stay on the market for a shorter time. As a direct result of this, candidate confidence has risen meaning their salary expectations have also increased. It is hard to put a percentage growth to this figure from a quarter to quarter perspective due to Q4’s trends. That said, juniors with some exposure to the above technologies could be worth up to £40,000, with Analyst Level moving toward £50,000 - £55,000. Beyond this level, it very much depends on the particular applications, and amount of product/business knowledge required. While Diversity is a hot topic, particularly within the larger banks and organisations, for smaller software houses that run leaner teams the focus is on Core Technology.

Infrastructure

2015 has seen an advent of previously overshadowed aspects of infrastructure, especially within the sub-category of Business Intelligence. A particular emphasis has been around the creation of the ‘citizen data scientist’ in order to make use of the leaps in harnessing data which we have seen over the last two years. This new focus on providing accessible and

transparent insight has been embodied on the Data Visualization front by Qlik. They have managed to quash any advances from competitors such as Tableau and its market leading position within the Banking and Finance sector was further solidified with the release of Qlikview 12 in November and the proliferation of Qliksense throughout the year. This has led to an issue of supply and demand whereby there are less quality Qlikview developers on the market than there are roles, alluding to an increase in rates individuals are able to command. There has been intermittent hiring in this area with little correlation, however, there have been notable creations of ‘insight teams’ as well as the position of the Chief Data Officer, at a number of the Wharf’s key players. The importance of accessible data had also been embodied within the SAS market which has seen consistent growth since the slump earlier this year. Although a lot of this hiring has been focused around the retail banking and insurance sectors, the new-found collaboration between SAS and Hadoop with the creation of SAS Data Loader for Hadoop should see further growth as we move through the initial stages of 2016. Skills such as DI Studio and EG and knowledge of the Risk sectors have been in high demand, particularly in order to combat the demands of IFRS9. In terms of more traditional aspects of infrastructure, the databasing market has seen further emphasis on the SQL Server market which was clear in Q1 of 2015. Although Oracle and Sybase still have a presence the reliable and pragmatic nature of SQL Server and the accompanying Microsoft BI stack has seen it streak ahead in terms of market share. As with the rest of the infrastructure market there has been a very slight increase in rates, however, this has been marginal. In summary, the most exciting area as we move into the New Year is the continued growth of the BI & Analytics market, however, it’s essential not to neglect the staples of the infra-sphere. Databasing, IT Security and system

administration will see continuous growth in 2016 particularly as certain clients re-find their feet following significant high profile changes and obstacles in 2015. We foresee a very positive 2016.

Testing & QA With the automation market becoming more established in the UK, we are seeing a consistent high level of movement within Automation across the financial markets. There is an ever growing competitive need for employers to constantly improve their offering and reward to automation test analysts/engineers and developers in the hope to retain the very best talent. In particular, the permanent market has seen a good level of hiring across software vendors, banking & financial services companies. Movement in this area has come for various reasons: mainly the need to hire, grow, or replace automation staff on the permanent side when attractive and increasing contractor day rates are offered to them for the same role which significantly outweigh the benefits of a traditional permanent packages and salaries. We also find the Finance & Banking market has a new competitor, the telecommunications, media and online/internet companies. These markets, which have, in the past, not been so appealing, have taken a shift toward becoming technically savvy and attractive as a QA/Testing and Development employer. With the same, if not more money on the cards for Manual & Automation Test Analysts in the UK, there becomes a growing fork in the road as to whether the finance market is the most lucrative industry to be in- as it was once perceived to be. More and more employers are looking at near shore locations more frequently in major cities outside of the capital as opposed to outside of the UK, which is a more traditional offshoring model, largely used for cost reduction purposes. We are seeing a number of clients relocating QA resources towards Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh and Brighton. In line of testing tools, we are finding Java tied in with Selenium is most common within Automation testing.

With most employers wishing to build on their Agile/TDD/BDD environment, this is becoming heavily vetted in interviews. The candidates with strong communication skills, multiple object orientated programming languages and the exposure to other tools such as Cucumber and SpecFlow are still and probably will continue to be the most wanted in 2016. The testing market will continue to thrive into 2016. Banking and Financial Services will always be an attraction for candidates outside of this industry. The industry’s employers will need to keep producing innovative ways to retain their technologists. With bonuses being on par with many other non-financial employers/industries now combined with resources within QA shifted to near shore locations as described above, they will need to be more competitive in the UK Capital to retain top testing talent where the most competition is. London City will always require high standards in this market for years to come and employers can often struggle to secure this outside of the capital.