Hiring Hotspots in Financial Services: What’s Really Driving Demand in 2026
For the past decade, hiring in financial services has tended to move in step with investment activity. Where capital goes, people usually follow. That’s still true in 2026, but it’s no longer the full picture.
Hiring decisions are now shaped just as much by talent shortages, compensation trends, and retention risk as they are by deal flow or investment cycles. We spoke with a boutique client who factors in a 22% attrition rate into their team planning but were dismayed to see this hovering between 6-8% during the PE hiring slowdown of 2022
Recent data shows UK financial services firms are still planning to hire, with around 55% expecting to increase headcount in 2026, but the growth is narrow and highly targeted rather than broad-based expansion. We have seen hiring limited to active sectors – like digital infrastructure and healthcare.
So instead of asking “where is investment going?”, firms are increasingly asking “where can we actually find and keep the right people?”
1. Investment Still Drives Hiring but More Selectively
Investment activity across financial services is uneven.
Some areas of traditional investment banking are still relatively quiet compared to previous cycles, but others are showing steady or even strong momentum. Infrastructure, private credit, and specialist advisory work continue to attract capital and support hiring demand.
Private credit alone has grown into a multi-trillion-dollar market globally, now estimated at around $3.5 trillion, but it’s also facing more scrutiny as risk concerns rise.
What’s changed is how firms respond. Instead of large-scale hiring waves, most are building smaller, more specialised teams focused on very specific revenue opportunities. Even when investment is strong, it doesn’t automatically translate into mass recruitment anymore. Coupled with improvements in AI technology, we don't anticipate mass hiring across many teams in 2026/2027.
Hiring has become more surgical – more life-saving than cosmetic.
2. Talent Shortages Are Now the Real Bottleneck
In many parts of financial services, the biggest constraint isn’t budget — it’s quality people.
Firms may have approval to grow, but they often struggle to find candidates with the right mix of skills. This is particularly true in areas like the following:
- Cross-border regulation and compliance
- Complex or niche financial products
- Hybrid roles that combine commercial and technical expertise
- Data, AI, and risk governance
Regulatory and risk functions are especially competitive right now. Ongoing regulatory change and increased scrutiny of financial systems have created sustained demand for experienced professionals, particularly in compliance, operational resilience, and data governance.
The result is a mismatch: firms want to expand in certain areas, but the talent simply isn’t available in sufficient volume. That mismatch is now shaping where hiring “hotspots” actually appear.
3. Professionals Are Moving For Money Again
When talent is scarce, pay starts to move.
Across financial services, compensation is becoming more flexible, especially for specialist roles. Firms are increasingly willing to stretch salary bands or adjust bonus structures to secure the right candidates.
Some patterns are starting to form:
- Specialists in high-demand areas are seeing significant premium offers
- Pay differences between generalist and niche roles are widening
- Firms are required to go through more hoops to secure exotic compensation packages
- Compensation is being tailored more to role scarcity than seniority alone
In practice, this means two people at similar levels can now be on very different packages depending on how hard they are to replace.
It also means compensation is no longer just about attracting talent but rather about avoiding internal imbalance and cost creep.
4. Retention Has Become Part of the Hiring Strategy
Hiring doesn’t end when someone accepts an offer anymore.
In high-demand areas, firms are finding that retention risk starts immediately. Candidates with in-demand skillsets are more mobile, counter-offers are more common, and competition between employers is intense.
As a result, firms are starting to think about retention much earlier in the process. That includes:
- Clearer progression pathways from day one
- More structured long-term incentive plans
- Better alignment between pay, performance, and responsibility
- Designing roles that are sustainable, not just attractive on paper
Put simply, hiring and retention are now tightly linked. You can’t really plan one without the other.
Conclusion
Investment will always influence hiring in financial services, but in 2026 it’s only one part of a more complex picture.
The real drivers of hiring hotspots now are talent availability, compensation dynamics, and retention risk. Recent market data shows firms are still hiring, but they’re doing it in a much more focused way — concentrating on AI, risk, compliance, and highly specialised advisory roles rather than broad expansion.
For employers, the message is pretty clear. Finding hiring hotspots is no longer the hard part. The real challenge is building teams that can be secured, properly rewarded, and kept in place long enough to deliver value.
Sources
- KPMG UK Financial Services Hiring Outlook 2026 (press release and market commentary)
https://kpmg.com/uk/en/media/press-releases/2026/04/uk-financial-services-to-boost-hiring-in-2026.html - Robert Half UK – Risk and Compliance Salary & Hiring Trends
https://www.roberthalf.com/gb/en/insights/research/risk-and-compliance-exploring-new-roles-salaries-demand - Beqom – Financial Services Compensation Trends 2026
https://www.beqom.com/blog/compensation-management-trends-financial-services - KPMG UK Recruitment Market Report 2026
https://kpmg.com/uk/en/media/press-releases/2026/02/kpmg-rec-uk-report-on-jobs.html - Reuters – Private Credit Market and Risk Commentary (2026 coverage)
https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/wall-street-monitors-private-credit-risk-ai-disruption-outflows-cause-concern-2026-04-14/ - Business Insider – Investment Banking Hiring and Deal Team Expansion Trends
https://www.businessinsider.com/citi-banking-costs-dealmaker-hiring-spree-2026-4
