Earlier this month Z/Yen published their global financial centres index which stated that for the first time in 15 years, New York has overtaken London as the world’s top financial centre. The report focused on a number of factors including infrastructure and reputation and was combined with a survey to show the most attractive financial cities. To follow on from this, job search platform Joblift looked into the financial job markets in both London and New York to find out if these results matched or contradicted the Z/Yen conclusions. While New York may have become the most attractive worldwide financial centre, Joblift’s results show that the crown still lies with London when it comes to job availability and growth.

London has more than twice the number of vacancies and three times as much job growth

According to Joblift, 124,788 financial job vacancies have been posted in London in the last 12 months. In comparison, New York has been the location of 49,526 financial vacancies in the same time period, around 2.5 times less than in the UK’s capital. To further bolster London’s claim as the financial job market top spot, vacancies in the capital have increased at three times the rate of New York’s. While the US city’s financial job market increased by 1% each month on average in the last 12 months, London’s market saw a 3% average rise.

Both cities share the most in-demand professions and top employers but vacancies in new york were more secure

Despite the differences in number of vacancies and job growth, the financial job markets in the two cities have a lot in common. Accountants are the most in-demand professionals in both cities, making up 12% of the job market in London, and 9% in New York. They are followed by Finance Managers in London (11%) and Economists in New York (6%), with these professions switching in each location as the third most in-demand – Economists in London (4%), and Finance Managers in New York (6%). Additionally, while not in the same ranking order, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were the top employers in both New York and London. However, while the same professions are in demand, jobs in New York were more secure. In the last year, 87% of the finance vacancies advertised in New York were for permanent contracts, while postings offering the same contract type in London made up just 75% of the capital’s financial market.

(Source: Joblift)