BWD Q1 2021 Hiring Confidence Index - Wealth Management

BWD HIRING INTRODUCTION CONFIDENCE INDEX At the end of last year, we published our first Hiring Confidence Index to give a candid, visual snapshot of recruitment activity across Financial Services during 2020. Using 2019 as the (Pre Covid) benchmark WEALTH across the three main key activity metrics, we were able to show the impact of the various events last MANAGEMENT year on corporate confidence from a recruitment perspective. Q1 2021 We will now be releasing specific Hiring Confidence Index’s for each of our 5 practice areas, every quarter, and looking back over a rolling 12 month period. Here we review activity for our Wealth Management division, which incorporates Financial Planning, Investment Management & Private Banking. It is important to note that we had the exact same long-standing team within our Wealth Management division in 2019 as we do now, so it provides a direct and genuine comparison. This will prove a useful tool for firms, and individuals, interested in understanding hiring trends within the market. BWD | HIRING CONFIDENCE INDEX

COMMENTARY Whatever the driver, the figures are quite stark. During 2018 and 2019, London- based hires accounted for just under half of our Financial Planning placements An exceptional start to the year nationally. In 2020, and so far in 2021, this dropped to 20-25%. Conversely, We are very pleased to report that, within Wealth Management, the year has despite the difficult year, regional placements made in 2020 were actually started with a bang, with lockdown three having seemingly little impact on slightly ahead of both 2018 and 2019, and already in 2021, we are on track for a recruitment plans and activity. Interview numbers are back in line with pre- record number of regional financial planning hires. pandemic levels and new assignments taken on in Q1 2021 were 10% higher Combine the opening, by many large players, of new regional hubs in recent than the same period in 2019. Most stark is the high number of offers we times, with the fact that we have several major financial services employers have seen during Q1; 30% up on 2019, and more than double those we saw already announcing new work from home contracts for thousands of for the same period in 2020. The latter is particularly remarkable given that, employees, and we expect heightened levels of recruitment outside of London in a business sense, much of Q1 2020 was largely ‘pre Covid’ in the UK. to be a major feature through 2021 and beyond. The exceptionally high number of offers we have seen in Q1 has been helped Remote Hiring by the peak in new assignments taken on towards the end of last year, as Alongside improved sentiment, rising markets, and regional growth trends, by highlighted in the index, but I think has more to do with an inherent return of the start of this year firms were also much more adept, and comfortable with, confidence and optimism. Aside from the usual seasonal dip around remote hiring. I think it's safe to say that if you had asked most employers just Christmas, since the vaccine rollout was announced in late November, over a year ago if they would be happy to make a mid-senior level hire without recruitment activity has, like the FTSE 100, steadily risen. physically meeting that individual, the answer would generally have been no. A I can honestly say that, for the first time in well over a year, Q1 has truly felt year on and not one of the 30+ candidates I have personally placed since the ‘business as usual' in terms of activity levels and this is backed up by recent pandemic started were met face to face by their new employer before being conversations we have been having with our clients. The Head of Wealth offered. Entirely remote interview processes have been fully accepted and are Planning at a large Private Bank recently disclosed that they have just had now not even mentioned, questioned, or raised as a concern. their best Q1 on record, and we have had many other similar conversations The same efficiency benefits that advisers have reported when dealing with with clients experiencing higher than usual demand. Furthermore, this surge their clients remotely have been replicated in the recruitment process. Passive of business feels cross-industry and not just restricted to wealth candidates are much happier and more able, to squeeze in an exploratory management; from those covering other markets within BWD, to friends and Teams meeting with a hiring firm, than they would have been travelling to a family working in other professions, the same sentiment is echoed. face-to-face interview. Interviews are being booked at shorter notice, interview Regional Growth rounds are being conducted in quicker succession, and the whole recruitment One particularly notable factor that the infographic doesn’t convey is how process shortened and simplified. It will be interesting to see how many return the growth and recruitment we have seen has switched on its head from to a more traditional recruitment process when circumstances allow, and how London to the regions. Whilst several large players were already making well many will continue to integrate remote interviews into their process, to some publicised regional pushes before the Pandemic, the impact of Covid-19, in degree at least. recruitment terms, has undoubtedly hit hardest in London. Where firms have In summary, a very positive start to 2021 and, whilst we undoubtedly face a partially opened some of their offices, this has typically been in the regions, bumpy road ahead, economic indicators and market sentiment point to genuine with the safety risks posed by commuting to, and moving around within, growth across Wealth Management. London offices, being obviously greater. The disparity we have seen could also potentially be down to the realisation that firms can hire people in the JAMES WOODS BWD Search & Selection regions to cover clients across a wider geographics because of technology 0113 274 3000 being adopted. SENIOR CLIENT DIRECTOR | WEALTH MANAGEMENT 07824 467011 [email protected] [email protected] www.bwd-search.co.uk BWD | HIRING CONFIDENCE INDEX