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Tech Hiring On Wall Street Once Again Rising Sharply

Job postings on eFinancialCareers are up 24% year-on-year, as the buy-side also steps up hiring of tech professionals.

Technology hiring on Wall Street is once again rising sharply, according to a new survey from eFinancialCareers, a global career site for professionals working in the investment banking, asset management and securities industries.

Job postings seeking Wall Street tech professionals on eFinancialCareers are up 24% compared to last year.

"We've seen an increase in postings for four consecutive months," Constance Melrose, managing director of eFinancialCareers North America said.

Postings are not yet back at pre-credit crisis levels, but the trend is increasing year-on-year activity, Melrose noted. "We're also starting to see more of the buy side come back in terms of their needs."

Currently tech skills most in demand on Wall Street are programming skills, with C, C++ and C# leading the way, followed by Java/J2EE, database administrator skills and SQL. [For the full top 10 list see below.]

"The C-languages give you the capacity to deal with real-time information, to do simulations, real-time modeling etc. Wall Street looks for people who can fine-tune models and the performance of systems. It's all about getting and keeping the edge," Melrose told WS&T.

"The increasing prevalence of high-speed trading is one reason why C-languages are so widely needed. They help people manage and simulate very large data streams happening in real-time," she added. Employers are also increasingly seeking tech professionals with risk management skills, Melrose said. In fact, risk management is mentioned so frequently in technology job postings that it's number 7 on the list of most sought after skills and experience, she said.

"Tech professionals on Wall Street have to have a much broader understanding of risk and types of risk, than other industries. They have to know about reputational risk, market risk, credit risk, etc.

Outside of Wall Street, when tech professionals think of risk, they just think of risk around the system itself," Melrose noted.

Melrose said eFinancialCareers currently has 1600 job postings, marking a 31% rise year-on-year across all categories. The top category is investment banking. On the shoulders of new regulations for the financial industry, postings seeking compliance and legal professionals are currently second, followed by research and fixed income.

The survey found that in New York, average salaries are 20% higher for technology professionals working in finance than the tech population as a whole.

Top Technology Skills in Demand on Wall Street as measured by eFinancialCareers job postings

1. C, C++, C#

2. Java/J2EE

3. Database Administrator

4. SQL

5. Unix

6. Linux

7. Risk Management

8. Project Manager

9. Perl

10. Oracle

Melanie Rodier has worked as a print and broadcast journalist for over 10 years, covering business and finance, general news, and film trade news. Prior to joining Wall Street & Technology in April 2007, Melanie lived in Paris, where she worked for the International Herald ... View Full Bio

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