Future movements in the market for temporary and contractual opportunities in the field of compliance are very hard to predict at the moment.

In the first quarter of this year the market was preparing for the changes in IR35 compliance to come into effect and this certainly suppressed opportunities for employment across the board. The advent of the Coronavirus has now pushed those changes back until next year and we have already seen firms taking different approaches to hiring contractors. Some have stuck with their plans and are only taking contractors on PAYE (pay-as-you-earn) or Umbrella (see below), whereas others are opening back up and giving people the chance to still operate through their limited companies.

From temp...

Under PAYE, for a temporary compliance man, the agency that found him the job is his employer and is responsible for paying him. It calculates the right amount of income tax and pays it to the Government. If he uses an umbrella company as his employer, the agency pays that company and the umbrella company pays him. It does the same thing. All he has to do is submit his timesheets to one or the other.

Despite these changes and the fact that nobody knows what is going to happen next with the virus,

The year started off well with a number of contract jobs appearing - and being filled - throughout the field of compliance, calling for people to do KYC/AML analysis, monitoring, surveillance, advisory work, regulatory change and implementation.

Hiring has also been occurring at a wide spread of financial firms, from smaller foreign banks and wealth management firms to middle-sized 'tier 2' banks and large global 'tier 1' banks and asset management firms.

...to perm

By contrast, permanent compliance hiring among the largest investment banks has been sluggish in the first quarter of this year. Many have not been hiring and the others have been hiring in small numbers and only to replace people who have left. On the 'buy side,' hiring has been brisker, with junior-to-mid-level opportunities appearing in the investment management and private equity houses.

Salary levels have been somewhat stagnant in the past 18 months, partly as a result of the high number of job candidates in the market, many of  whom are available at short notice and willing to compromise on salaries.

The anti-money-laundering (AML) sector and generalist positions within buy side firms have seen the most turnover. European compliance hiring has been busier, but firms are finding it difficult to attract good talent.