The Canary Wharf business district is seen at dusk in London
(Picture: REUTERS)The City is back — and booming.
Hiring by banks, insurers and City brokers hit a two-year high in the first three months of the year and investment into offices in the Square Mile hit an all-time high.
More than 11,000 finance jobs were advertised in the first quarter, according to specialist recruiter Morgan
McKinley. That was up 73% on the same period a year earlier and up 35% on the final three months of 2021.
Hakan Enver, managing director at Morgan McKinley, said: “London’s corporate ‘bubble’ has prospered, seemingly unfazed by what is happening elsewhere in the world.
“It’s safe to say that firms have been desperate to hire.”
The bun-fight for candidates has left bankers commanding hefty pay increases, with an average salary bump of 22% upon switching jobs.
It’s safe to say that firms have been desperate to hire
“The first three months of this year saw companies hiring in their droves and professionals with renewed confidence to move,” Enver said.
Morgan McKinley’s findings were backed up by rival Hays, which said it had just ended a record quarter.
Hays’ City practice saw fees jump 57% in the first quarter, with banking revenues up 40%.
CFO Paul Venables said the company’s London business was now 40% bigger than pre-pandemic levels.
“There’s a real war for talent and you can’t afford to take too long with a job offer,” he said.
Hays specialises in tech and finance recruitment, areas that are blighted by a “massive skills shortage”, Venables said.
“Our London tech business was up 60% year-on-year, that’s not just a bounce-back,” he said. “Most companies have come out of the pandemic looking to drive digitisation.”
The trend is global, with nearly every country in the world fighting for tech talent.
Venables said: “I’ve done this since 2006 and I’ve never seen such uniformity of strength in recruitment.
“It’s a good time to be a skilled candidate.”
The recruiter said fees were up 32% globally over the past year. Private sector recruitment is outpacing the public sector as a boom driven by government Covid-19 hiring begins to fade.
Separate figures today showed investment into London office space is surging as the City roars back to life.
Office deals worth £3.3 billion were struck in the City of London in the first three months of the year, according to Savills.
That was the highest total for the area ever, almost a third above the previous record peak at the start of 2007. Stephen Down, head of central London investment at Savills, called the performance “nothing short of stellar”.
The biggest deal in the City was the £1.2 billion sale of UBS’s 5 Broadgate headquarters to LaSalle Investment Management and NPS, a transaction struck in December but completed at the start of this year.
