NIMBLE-FOOTED small and niche financial firms are taking advantage of a surplus of City talent by upping their recruitment, it emerged this morning.
With many larger banks cutting their headcounts, smaller aspirational groups are looking to snap up highly qualified bankers.
“Some employees who would normally only move from one top flight bank to another are now more willing to accept job offers from smaller name, more ambitious employers,” said recruiters Astbury Marsden.
“Those employees that have stayed put for some time to see out the downturn will still be harbouring ambitions to move on,” added Mark Cameron, Astbury Marsden’s chief operating officer.
The company has found that most new roles are coming from firms outside the top 10 investment banks – mirroring the situation following the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008.
The number of City vacancies rebounded healthily last month, the firm said, up to 4,050 from the Christmas-time slump of 1,490 in December.
Yet job availability in January remained around 25 per cent lower than at the same time last year.
