Increasing red tape helps to boost salaries at senior and middle management levels but will the robots shake up the job market for those at a more junior level?
Increasingly complicated regulation is bulking out the pay packets of those who keep companies on the straight and narrow, according to research shown exclusively to City PM, but advances in technology could force a shakeup in what the typical role looks like.
The study by recruiter Hays Financial Markets discovered that top candidates with risk skills at the most senior levels could command salaries of £200,000 or more, while those at associate vice president and vice president level saw their salaries grow by as much as 15 per cent last year.
Ian Clark, director at Hays Financial Markets, explained that increases in the amount of regulation since 2008 had hiked risk exposure in the sector, adding: “Obviously, with greater risk comes greater reward.”
Some workers may feel they need to watch their back as advances in technology lead to more functions being automated.
Recently, Royal Bank of Scotland revealed that it was cutting 550 staff, replacing them with so-called robo-advisers.
However, Clark believes that technology is “evolving the function, not necessarily causing widespread panic or redundancies or displacing people”.
Clark remarked that, because technology had made some tasks quicker to perform, some of those working in finance may have seen their duties shift in recent years, adding: “Even at a junior level, you still need somebody who’s going to be able to pick up the phone and do the investigative work so it’s shifting the headcount more than changing the like-for-like numbers.”