Despite a year of political turbulence, 2019 saw a continued growth in demand for IT professionals in the UK fintech sector – with a 5.9% yearly rise in vacancies.
The data, provided by business intelligence specialist Vacancysoft for the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo), places London as far and away the leading UK region, accounting for 69.2% of all jobs - with year on year activity up 19%.
Outside of London, there is a different picture, with the hiring activity falling 15% - part of a wider trend where IT jobs away from the capital has gone from making up 44.5% of roles to just 30.7% in 2019.
In terms of businesses, HSBC remains the biggest hirer for fintech professionals, where since 2018 the number of vacancies has surged 57.2%. Lloyds has seen the most significant increase - with demand up 300% year on year as the bank prepares to move 500,000 customer accounts from its legacy IT onto a cloud-based core banking platform.
Ann Swain, CEO of APSCo comments: “As a sector that is growing in relevance, it’s really encouraging to see demand for jobs in fintech continue to rise. This is in spite of a number of factors last year that could have damaged vacancy growth. With the uncertainty around Brexit and IR35 - and companies like HSBC imposing blanket bans on contractors - the fact that demand has still risen shows just how healthy the sector is.”