Job creation within the fintech space in London increased by 61% over the past year as the City cemented its standing as a global hub for financial technology startups, according to data from recruitment firm Robert Walters.
This year, London will be home to just as many fintech ‘unicorns’ as current global leader San Francisco - according to the report from Robert Walters and market analysis experts Vacancy Soft.
Of the 29 fintech unicorns worldwide, nine are in San Francisco, while seven are housed in the UK.
E-money firms grew by 51% between 2017 to 2018, and it is predicted that by 2020 over half of payment service providers in the UK will be digital-only.
Such is the growth of the industry, that in 2018 job creation within the fintech space increased by 61% - making it the fastest growing sector in the London economy.
And the benefits were not just felt in the capital, last year the fintech boom created an 18% uplift in job creation in regions outside of London.
Ahsan Iqbal, director of technology at Robert Walters says: “IT continues to dominate the hiring agenda for fintechs, with a third (30%) of roles within the sector dedicated to tech. In 2018, we saw IT vacancies within the fintech space increase by 74% when compared with 2017.
“The increase in demand for IT talent - coupled with Brexit-related concerns - poses the risk of stifling the talent pool. As a result, we are already starting to see salary inflations for IT professionals of around 6-8% - and some pretty impressive buy-back and counter offers.”
As well as IT, the most in-demand roles within fintech continue to be marketing and PR. However those professions that have seen the biggest spike in recruitment (in most cases a 100% increase since 2017) are HR, accounting and business aupport roles.
Since 2017, hiring within the fintech space has also increased for banking (48%), law (40%), insurance (16%), and sales (16%) roles.