State of the Market

[uk contractor]

Then it bounces back as they realise what paying too much cheapness actually gets you.

Soon I hope!

[LondonManc]

Soon I hope!

Unfortunately some areas will take longer than others as they found out how productive they aren't.

[SueEllen]

Soon I hope!

Companies do it in cycles.

The more intelligent ones off-shore some work but make sure sufficient capacity is kept in more expensive developed countries. That way when the off-shore teams screw up it can be sorted out asap.

[SussexSeagull]

After some activity round Christmas and the New Year, including an interview which I got through only for the client to change their mind and fill it internally, it seems to have gone quiet again.

Got one more possibility but if that comes to nothing I think it is time to switch attention to permanent roles.

[Bluenose]

In 5 years I have never turned down so much work in such a short space of time.

Phone and email have not stopped since the 2nd week in January.

[SussexSeagull]

In 5 years I have never turned down so much work in such a short space of time.

Phone and email have not stopped since the 2nd week in January.

Good for you, although I tend to find phone calls do tend to come when you are in contract!

[Bluenose]

Credit Suisse to cut 5,500 jobs in 2017 after $2.4 billion full-year loss | Reuters
More bad news for IT contractors there are bound to be a lot of IT related roles lost because of this. After trading IT is the next highest paid role in banking.

They will target contractors in sales and trading, that is for sure however they are simply paying their people (jobs of all types) in this area of the business too much and its been consumed by technology disruption. Their sales and trading division costs eat 99.x% of all revenues in that division, its not sustainable.

Where technology disruption (via automation) is not consuming these jobs, Credit Suisse is doing just fine i.e. traditional investment banking.

The main future growth area where overheads are far lower is actually in the more technical, niche market-marking trading platforms. This is because they don't need to pay a team of bankers and admin staff approx $400k per year each, they just need a much smaller team of bankers and admin staff and a larger team of IT staff.

Its not that the banking model is broken, its just that banks simply cannot afford to sustain the pay levels in some areas of the business.

It is a great time to be working in IT in some banks departments, you just need to be in the correct specialist field. Generally speaking though, the banking gravy train for IT stopped in approx 2007, its just that people fell asleep on the train and have not realised it had stopped until recently.

[LondonManc]

They will target contractors in sales and trading, that is for sure however they are simply paying their people (jobs of all types) in this area of the business too much and its been consumed by technology disruption. Their sales and trading division costs eat 99.x% of all revenues in that division, its not sustainable.

Where technology disruption (via automation) is not consuming these jobs, Credit Suisse is doing just fine i.e. traditional investment banking.

The main future growth area where overheads are far lower is actually in the more technical, niche market-marking trading platforms. This is because they don't need to pay a team of bankers and admin staff approx $400k per year each, they just need a much smaller team of bankers and admin staff and a larger team of IT staff.

Its not that the banking model is broken, its just that banks simply cannot afford to sustain the pay levels in some areas of the business.

It is a great time to be working in IT in some banks departments, you just need to be in the correct specialist field. Generally speaking though, the banking gravy train for IT stopped in approx 2007, its just that people fell asleep on the train and have not realised it had stopped until recently.

I'd worked in financial services in the past (retail banking, sub-prime lending, general finance, accounting, etc.) but not in IB until 2011. Since then I've not done too shabbily out of the industry and despite some late nights, not found the pressure to work more hours than I would elsewhere.

In terms of the gravy train, there are certainly cases of teams being too large, but that happens across most industries where it is allowed to happen. If you're making money just by existing with a good proposition and profits keep increasing, there's no sense of business case justification until profits stop increasing.

[uk contractor]

They will target contractors in sales and trading, that is for sure however they are simply paying their people (jobs of all types) in this area of the business too much and its been consumed by technology disruption. Their sales and trading division costs eat 99.x% of all revenues in that division, its not sustainable.

Where technology disruption (via automation) is not consuming these jobs, Credit Suisse is doing just fine i.e. traditional investment banking.

The main future growth area where overheads are far lower is actually in the more technical, niche market-marking trading platforms. This is because they don't need to pay a team of bankers and admin staff approx $400k per year each, they just need a much smaller team of bankers and admin staff and a larger team of IT staff.

Its not that the banking model is broken, its just that banks simply cannot afford to sustain the pay levels in some areas of the business.

It is a great time to be working in IT in some banks departments, you just need to be in the correct specialist field. Generally speaking though, the banking gravy train for IT stopped in approx 2007, its just that people fell asleep on the train and have not realised it had stopped until recently.

Derivatives developers & traders are the ones being paid way too much the market for that burst around 2010-12 mainly due to automated high frequency trading systems taking over the bulk of the daily trading cycle. I think the only profitable IT careers in banking near term will be either niche & or skillsets which have the potential to save the banks a lot of money by automation, cloud services, virtualisation & or offshoring basically anything which removes the need to have someone sitting in a London office using a keyboard & mouse!! London costs US banks around $100-150K PA per person in overheads (desk floor space rent, office upkeep, HR costs etc etc). Used to be way higher @ approx $250k per person but has come down a lot in recent years due to landlords understanding something is better than nothing office rents wise!

[LondonManc]

Derivatives developers & traders are the ones being paid way too much the market for that burst around 2010-12 mainly due to automated high frequency trading systems taking over the bulk of the daily trading cycle. I think the only profitable IT careers in banking near term will be either niche & or skillsets which have the potential to save the banks a lot of money by automation, cloud services, virtualisation & or offshoring basically anything which removes the need to have someone sitting in a London office using a keyboard & mouse!! London costs US banks around $100-150K PA per person in overheads (desk floor space rent, office upkeep, HR costs etc etc). Used to be way higher @ approx $250k per person but has come down a lot in recent years due to landlords understanding something is better than nothing office rents wise!

The big misnoma in the costs of comparing London to India or even Poland is the quality of person that you're actually getting.

"But we can have 3 people in Bangalore for the price of one in London." "Yeah, but they can't actually do the job that the one person in London does." "That doesn't matter."

"We can have 2 people in Warsaw for the price of one in London." "You're getting two graduates to replace the person with 15 years under their belt? No wonder they're cheaper." Stunned silence....