Despite the issues the financial sector has had to deal with since the 2007 recession, 59% of jobseekers would still consider entering this industry.
In 2007 the finance industry was plagued with bad press from investments gone wrong; mis-sold PPI insurance; and careless banking; however, this hasn¹t deterred IT professionals from considering a move. Research from IT specialist recruitment site CWJobs.co.uk reveals that 59% of those who have never previously worked in the finance sector would consider a new career in financial IT. Of those who would consider this move, 59% stated they do not know what the job requires of them.
Despite 83% of interested candidates believing they already hold transferable skills that would assist them in this industry, 90% would consider retaining in order to fulfill these roles.
Encouragingly, it's not just the lure of a large bonus that is driving the desire to move into the sector, the primary reason cited is the opportunity to learn new skills (73%), with the high earning salary (53%) and benefits (23%) secondary. Other reasons included the belief it would provide more interesting work (45%).
The results also showed that 98% of respondents expect that the work would be harder than other sectors with longer working hours (89%). Many respondents also saw finance as an insecure industry (80%), understandable after its very public issues over the previous years.
Richard Nott, Website Director of CWJobs explains, "This year we have already seen that the IT industry in the UK is growing. Our JobAdsWatch data shows the number of IT contractors in the finance industry was up by 3% in the second quarter of the year. It is encouraging that the UK's negative perception of the finance industry is not mirrored by IT professionals, who see that opportunities and benefits are rife in this sector".