What Wall Street Wants from IT Hires

Wall Street is hiring IT talent again. But what skills are in demand? Says Constance Melrose, managing director at eFinancialCareers North America, “To modernize Sir Francis Bacon, financial services companies want to create ‘wealth and means’ through mind, wit, courage, audacity, resolution, temper, industry and C, C++, C#. Those programming languages top the list of technical skills most desired in financial markets, as compiled through analysis of current eFinancialCareers job postings. Companies are looking to recruit programmers, database administrators and project managers in various operations including algorithmic trading, risk management and wealth management to name a few.” Experience counts with employers, says Melrose, a reality that “creates a bottleneck and lifts compensation. Hiring managers frequently note staff shortages exist even though technology has always been integral to the industry. And in New York, average salaries are 20% higher for technology professionals working in finance than the tech population as a whole.”