In early May, a Financial Times headline announced: “Compliance staff enjoy pay boom as demand for expertise rockets.” The article detailed examples of headhunters helping compliance staff switch jobs, gaining on average pay rises of more than 20 percent. Other compliance staff were receiving counter offers to stay put and getting pay rises for not moving. Regulatory overdrive, especially in the banking and financial services sector, was driving this “staffing up.” And Brexit was making it even more difficult to retain compliance professionals.
The article cited data from LinkedIn showing that “while the number of compliance job ads in the investment industry rose 65 percent in London between the beginning of 2015 and the end of 2017, the rise in Luxembourg was sixfold and in Frankfurt fivefold.”
