News South Asia

The most desirable finance jobs in Singapore and Hong Kong now

If you thought it was tough to get a front-office job in the Asian finance sector, try finding one in information technology or accounting. The number of rival candidates clamouring to work in these sectors makes them the most competitive to find work in regionally.

For every Hong Kong and Singapore-based IT job advertised on eFinancialCareers right now we have 52 CVs from IT candidates in the two cities. The figure for accounting is 39.2.

Both these functions have been hit by offshoring of roles away from Hong Kong and Singapore over the past two years, but the pool of qualified candidates still living there remains large. As we reported in May, for example, a growing number of people in both markets are taking on local and global accounting qualifications.

We’ve also compared current vacancies with candidates numbers in 10 other parts of the finance sector to product the chart below.

The sectors towards the right of the chart clearly show some of the skill shortages now affecting financial services in Singapore and Hong Kong. If you want to work in a field where there’s less competition for each job and you can move with relative ease between employers, try compliance, risk or corporate banking.

For every Singapore and Hong Kong vacancy in compliance there are only 9.1 local compliance CVs – and not all these resumes will be a good fit for the role. As a result, compliance professionals in Asia can enjoy pay rises of up to 28% when they move banks. Corporate banking (a ratio of 18.3) is also lacking in talent as banks from Barclays to DBS look to increase their headcount of relationship managers.

Within investment banking, competition for jobs is less intense in capital markets (17.6 CVs per job) than in M&A (35.9). Mergers advisory remains a more desirable career than capital markets, despite the fact than banks in Asia generate more fees from the latter sector.