Focus on finance: Buy-Side Market Report & Salary Benchmarking guide
by Andrew Mackay
How has the UK buy-side finance market been affected by political uncertainty, challenging economic conditions and investor uncertainty? What are the key trends? How do current compensation levels compare to those of recent years? Let’s take a look at the last year in asset and wealth management and alternatives.
Asset and wealth management
Developing over hiring
A subdued fundraising cycle over the past 18 months has meant a slowdown in deal activity and reduced growth hiring. Firms are often replacing departing staff with candidates at a lower grade who they can then develop. While this approach does suggest a focus on cutting costs to offset declining revenue, it could also bode well for knowledge retention, staff growth and retention.
Private credit in a class of its own
Against a backdrop of sustained returns and more favourable interest rates, private credit has been the strongest-performing asset class over the last year. At the other end of the scale, real estate had a particularly challenging 2024, with firms mostly engaging in asset trades to release capital for return to limited partners, often at lower levels than anticipated.
Misalignment in salary expectations at mid-level
While salary expectations for candidates with 2–5 years of post-qualification experience (PQE) have risen, hiring firms have often benchmarked against outdated salary bands or the outgoing employee’s compensation, therefore falling on average £8-10,000 short of candidate expectations. With candidates reluctant to accept this level of variance, this has led to roles being vacant for prolonged periods, or only a handful of candidates to choose from.
Alternatives
Fund trumps corporate
Most hiring activity in 2024 centred around fund-focused roles, while there was considerably less demand in corporate finance. This reflects the broader trend of reduced growth hiring across the industry, in stark contrast to what we saw in 2021 and 2022.
Seeking technical skills
With stakeholders demanding more granular insights from finance teams to support data-driven decision-making, firms are increasingly looking for strong Excel skills in new hires, particularly in fund finance. Skills in data manipulation, visualisation, and tools such as VBA and SQL can also help candidates stand out in a competitive job market.
All about the figures
Buy-side middle office roles are becoming wider-reaching and more complex, particularly in areas involving data analytics, finance and operations. This is especially the case in private equity and alternative asset management, where investors are increasingly demanding transparency and data-driven insights.
At the same time, there’s increasing demand for professionals with specialised skills in financial modelling, valuations, portfolio and performance analytics, and data science.
Visas opening doors
Skilled worker visas have helped to expand candidate pools for hard-to-fill roles, with firms increasingly relocating talent from global financial hubs such as the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg. Candidates with Big 4 backgrounds, who are already in the UK on visas, are particularly in demand for these positions.
‘Britshoring’ increases in popularity
The UK is an increasingly attractive hub to US asset managers, who are outsourcing mid-level roles and operations teams to the UK to take advantage of lower labour costs, skilled financial and tech talent, and the favourable time zone alignment for global operations.
Salary snapshot
Salaries in fund finance are not growing anywhere near as quickly as they were between 2021 and 2023, with current compensation levels similar to last year.
At the smaller funds, particularly those with lower than £1 billion in assets under management, this could be offset by an increased availability of carry within the funds, at lower levels than previously seen, which is proving an incentive for attracting talent without having to offer higher salaries.
How is 2025 shaping up?
Can we expect these trends to continue as we enter Q2? Our UK Buy-Side Market Report and Salary Benchmarking guide takes a comprehensive look at the current trends and employee preferences in the finance sector in the UK buy-side market. Find out more by downloading our report here.
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