The traditional banking and finance sectors are ramping up their tech capabilities amid growing competition from challenger fintechs, new data suggests.
A new report from recruitment firm Robert Walters found that banking job listings in London requiring fintech skills were up 75% in the last 12 months, and listings for applicants with machine learning skills were up 107%.
As one of the oldest industries in history, finance has developed a reputation for being slow to change. However, increased pressure from tech startups offering financial services has been forcing a new approach over the last decade.
Looking at customer satisfaction over the past three years, challenger banks Monzo and Starling have regularly outperformed legacy rivals in the customer satisfaction league tables produced by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
And data published last year by British Business Bank found challenger banks had surpassed their high street counterparts for SME lending.
As tech skills have become essential to financial services, traditional players are scrambling to compete, with the Robert Walters report claiming tech spending would surpass £12bn in 2024.
The report also suggested a growing trend of tech workers happily joining legacy finance, with the number of tech professionals entering financial services up 24% in London.
“These findings are a positive indication for [the] UK’s financial services and banking sector. Not only because the data shows that banks are doing a fantastic job of luring away tech talent from other industries, but also from the job volume alone we can assume that banks are by no means paring back their tech investment,” said Chris Eldridge, CEO of Robert Walters.
“The race is on in the City for traditional banks to match the growth and burgeoning tech offerings of smaller fintech startups.”
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