Talent study · 10/3/2026

The finance jobs story is more complicated than the AI pitch.

Six connected findings from 12,142 job postings at 203 employers across 37 countries. This is a snapshot of advertised openings, not a census of the workforce.

The signal worth testing

AI appears in nearly half the openings. But how many describe actual AI work?

A mention is not a mandate to build with AI. Guess before you reveal the answer below.

01 · Test the AI claim ↓02 · Is Product disappearing? ↓

Chapter 1 · AI language

AI shows up often. Specific requirements are rarer.

46% of job postings mention AI. 36% do so only in general terms. How many name a real tool, method or model? Guess, then reveal.

AI: talked about vs. actually required

Guess first: of every 100 job postings, how many name a real AI tool or method?

Mention AI at all46 in 100

Name a real AI tool or method?

Which jobs appear in this collection?

Title matches only — not evidence that a role is growing, shrinking or being replaced. Categories can overlap. A repeated edition with stable coverage would test direction.

AI-related title patterns

Data platform & pipeline engineering137 · 1.1%
Applied AI & machine learning202 · 1.7%
AI & model risk / governance18 · 0.1%

Roles discussed in automation

Front-line service & contact centre312 · 2.6%
Manual testing / QA60 · 0.5%
Data entry & processing clerks7 · 0.1%

Explore role ladders →

The broader picture: AI language is not the same as demand for hands-on AI work. The specific requirement is the more informative signal.

Chapter 2 · Product & roles

Product is a thin slice of openings. Is it being squeezed out?

399 Product openings in 12,142 finance job postings (3.3%). That's a strikingly small share of this sample, not proof that the role is shrinking. Outside U.S. startup research shows overall hiring slowed while product new-hire pay rose.

A small Product lane; a much wider mix of work

Technology accounts for 22% of these openings; operations and client-facing jobs together make up 34%. Business and functional roles form another large family. These are shares of advertised openings, not workforce headcounts.

The whole role mix

Share of 12,142 job postings in this collection. Every classified family is shown.

Business / functional38% · 4,612
Technology22% · 2,654
Client-facing / advisory20% · 2,424
Operations14% · 1,738
Product3% · 399
Consulting3% · 315

Inside business / functional

Shares of business / functional postings only; ‘Other business’ remains unclassified.

Other business21% · 975
Investment & research12% · 556
Tech-like (data, systems, change)10% · 481
Early careers & interns9% · 396
Finance & accounting8% · 365
Admin & assistants7% · 316
Product & client-adjacent7% · 303
Ops-like (trade, settlement, servicing)6% · 268

See all 16 categories

Strategy & general management5% · 246
Marketing & communications5% · 241
HR & people3% · 151
Legal2% · 115
Risk1% · 60
Compliance & financial crime1% · 55
Sales & distribution1% · 55
Audit1% · 29

Employer-balanced role mix · max 35 openings per employer

Sectors

Shared / cross-sector33% · 4,006
Banking23% · 2,742
Wealth management19% · 2,330
Asset management14% · 1,729
Capital markets & trading10% · 1,253
Payments & cards1% · 82

Seniority

Mid45% · 5,508
Senior19% · 2,300
Director +14% · 1,694
Junior / associate13% · 1,585
Lead / staff9% · 1,055

Concrete AI by role family

Share within each role family, not all postings.

Technology27.4%
Product20.1%
Business / functional6%
Operations4.9%
Client-facing / advisory1.9%
Consulting1.3%

Operations + client work, by employer type

Fintechs (3,877 job postings)31.8%
Banks & incumbents (8,265 job postings)35.4%

The broader picture: The Product count merits attention, not an extinction headline. There is no comparable finance Product hiring time series here; see the outside research and its limits.

Beyond the snapshot · research

Hiring slows. The work does not simply vanish.

Our 399 broadly classified Product openings show how small that lane is here, not whether it is shrinking. Outside series reveal a squeeze in startup hiring — and a more complicated pay story.

01 / Startup headcount · U.S.

A freeze, not a product extinction

2019–22865,000

2023–May 202531,000

Net people added across 45,000+ Carta startups; the periods differ in length. These are all roles, not product or finance jobs. Carta, May 2025 ↗

02 / Product pay · U.S. startups

$189k

Product pay did not collapse with hiring

Average salary for new product-function hires in June 2025, tied with engineering. Carta reports slower hiring across most sectors, but rising product-function pay. This is not a finance pay trend or evidence of rising product headcount. Carta, H1 2025 ↗

−31%

Teller employment, observed

U.S. tellers: 496,760 in 2016 ↗ to 340,820 in 2023 ↗. Separately, BLS projects −13% for 2024–34 ↗.

+15%

Software occupations, projected

U.S. software developers, QA analysts and testers, 2024–34. Not a finance-sector technology forecast. BLS ↗

0.43 → 0.40%

Equity fund fees, observed

U.S. equity mutual-fund expense ratio, 2023–24. Investor fees, not a firm's margin. ICI ↗

Source & method: Our 22% technology share and 399 Product openings are global advertised jobs in one collection. Carta measures U.S. startup headcount or new-hire salary; BLS measures U.S. employment or projections; ICI measures investor fees. None is a comparable finance product-role time series. We cannot yet say whether finance Product hiring is falling or what caused any change; that requires repeated comparable editions.

Chapter 3 · Employers

Banks and fintechs ask for different evidence of the same ambition.

In the employer-balanced sample, 14% of fintech postings name a concrete AI tool or method, compared with 8% at banks. Compare cloud and financial-system requirements below too; each measure uses its own posting denominator.

Banks vs fintechs: what they ask for

Share of each group’s job postings in this study. Choose a comparison to see the employers behind it.

Banks & incumbents · 2,692 postings · 95 employers

Fintechs & others · 2,633 postings · 108 employers

Balance employers (max 35 each)

9.7%

11.8%

BanksFintechs

Fintechs · 2.1% percentage-point lead

1.4%

1.7%

BanksFintechs

About the same on both sides

8.4%

14.4%

BanksFintechs

Fintechs · 6.0% percentage-point lead

30.3%

45.6%

BanksFintechs

Fintechs · 15.3% percentage-point lead

39.7%

43.0%

BanksFintechs

Fintechs · 3.3% percentage-point lead

Shares are within each employer group, not a measure of headcount, spending or pay. Financial plumbing counts use confirmed financial-context mentions; ambiguous uses of “Swift” are excluded.

The broader picture: Employer type changes which requirements appear in an opening. These are differences in wording and open roles, not proof that one group uses more technology in practice.

Chapter 4 · Protocols

SWIFT leads the named financial protocols — only narrowly.

After checking original posting text, 38 postings clearly refer to the SWIFT network and 36 name ACH. The ranking below concerns verified mentions, not how often firms actually use each network. The broader cloud/platform measure (30% of technology and operations postings) uses a different definition.

The financial plumbing they name

Among the protocols and file formats named in this sample, which appear most often?

SWIFT leads this sample — narrowly.

38 confirmed mentions, versus 36 for ACH. That is 28% of 138 named protocol mentions, not a share of the whole industry.

113 of 4,392 technology and operations postings name at least one of these requirements, across 61 employers. A posting can name more than one; percentages below are shares of mentions and may overlap at posting level. “SWIFT” is counted only with financial context in the original text.

Most common in: Operations (32) · Technology (6)

Also ask for cloud: FIS (1) · State Street (1) · TD Bank (1)

All named standards and file formats

Broader, unverified text mentions; not the validated financial-protocol ranking above. A posting can name more than one.

REST APIs296
GraphQL65
SWIFT65
ACH64
SFTP / flat files39
ISO 2002236
FIX23
ACATS8

See all 10 categories

XBRL6
ISO 85832

The broader picture: A protocol can be essential without appearing in many job descriptions. Absence from a posting is not evidence of absence from a firm's systems.

Move from the systems named to the cities where these openings appear.

Chapter 5 · Cities

Pune runs the machinery; San Francisco draws fintech employers.

In this collection, 60% of 193 located postings in Pune are technology or operations, with 2% client-facing. In San Francisco, 79% of 335 postings come from fintech employers. Those are different measures, not a city ranking: compare both cities' role and employer mix below. Coverage is not a city-wide census.

Delivery & operations engineFintech hubClient & wealth hubDiversified financial centre

Explore the hubs

16 cities

Postings located in each city in this collection; not a ranking of local employment.

Pune

Delivery & operations engine193 job postings in our sample

Pune is where global firms run the machinery — 60% of job postings here are technology and operations, and only 2% face clients.

Technology45%

Business & functional34%

Operations15%

Client-facing2%

Other5%

Top hirers: Barclays, AllianceBernstein, Deutsche Bank, Northern Trust

Fully remote: 0% of job postings

Median advertised pay: $40,000 a year (base, where posted)

Hires away from HQ: 100% of job postings here are for employers headquartered elsewhere

City versus city

Pick two hubs and compare what kind of work happens there.

The broader picture: City patterns in this sample reflect the employers and roles covered; they should prompt closer questions, not stand in for a city's whole economy. Explore the employer map →

Chapter 6 · Technology tools

Python and SQL lead the named technology tools.

These are tool mentions in the collected job descriptions, not proof of proficiency or a ranking of what pays most. Each count is the number of postings naming the tool.

Named technologies and tools

Share of 12,142 sampled openings naming each tool; postings may name several.

Python15% · 1,829
SQL12% · 1,436
AWS8% · 1,007
Java7% · 831
Azure5% · 618
Kubernetes5% · 585
Salesforce5% · 560
Tableau / Looker / Power BI4% · 539
Jira3% · 404
React3% · 376

See all 20 categories

Terraform3% · 352
Kafka3% · 348
GCP3% · 331
Fidelity3% · 319
Bloomberg3% · 309
Snowflake2% · 302
C++2% · 252
C#/.NET2% · 248
Excel / VBA2% · 244
FIS2% · 209

The broader picture: The technology list is a snapshot of stated requirements, not a forecast of which skill to learn next. Explore the skills map →

Separate reference · qualifications

Licences and credentials named in postings

29% of client-facing postings name at least one licence or credential. The list below counts mentions across all job postings; it mixes regulated licences and professional certifications, so it is not a measure of who must hold a licence.

Named qualifications

Mentions across the sample; a posting may name more than one.

Series 7892
CFA638
Series 63/65/66570
CPA385
CFP308
PMP115
CAIA115
FRM82
Series 2455
ChFC/CLU51
CAMS43
AWS certified32

Eight claims, one reality check

What the job postings actually challenge

Do banks really move most tech hiring offshore? Is finance plumbing requested more often than cloud? The measured answer sits under each claim; open it for the sample and limits.

Balanced counts at most 35 job postings per employer so the largest banks don't dominate.

Held up

The sample met the test's stated threshold.

AI is mentioned often, but few postings name a concrete tool or workflow.
49% mention AI; only 23% of those name something concrete.
Test sample: 5,323 job postings. Thresholds are stated where applicable. This tests collected openings, not the whole workforce.
Licences cluster in client roles and rarely appear in tech roles.
Credentials named: client roles 26% vs tech roles 2%.
Test sample: 2,244 job postings. Thresholds are stated where applicable. This tests collected openings, not the whole workforce.

Didn't hold up

The observed share missed the threshold.

Large banks place most tech hiring offshore.
22% of incumbent tech postings list an offshore hub (needs 50%+).
Test sample: 439 job postings. Thresholds are stated where applicable. This tests collected openings, not the whole workforce.
Startups hire more for operations and client roles than incumbents.
Ops + client roles: fintechs 32% vs incumbents 36%.
Test sample: 5,323 job postings. Thresholds are stated where applicable. This tests collected openings, not the whole workforce.
Inside universal banks, wealth hiring looks like banking hiring.
Tech share in universal banks: wealth 2% vs banking 14% (within 8 points = similar).
Test sample: 737 job postings. Thresholds are stated where applicable. This tests collected openings, not the whole workforce.
Domain plumbing (standards, files, custody) is asked for more than generic cloud.
8% name a standard or file format vs 28% name a cloud platform.
Test sample: 2,037 job postings. Thresholds are stated where applicable. This tests collected openings, not the whole workforce.
Old core systems persist alongside their replacements.
1% name both a legacy and a modern platform (needs 5%+).
Test sample: 5,323 job postings. Thresholds are stated where applicable. This tests collected openings, not the whole workforce.

Still open

The sample is too thin for this test.

Hybrid domain + tech roles pay more than pure tech roles.
Advertised annual base-pay range midpoints (USD): hybrid insufficient sample (n=17) vs pure tech $180k (n=130). Not total compensation.
Test sample: 147 job postings. Thresholds are stated where applicable. This tests collected openings, not the whole workforce.

Now test yourself

Quick quiz

Talent reality check

Three questions. Guess first, then see what the job postings say.

1. Which is rarer in financial-services hiring?
2. Do fintechs give a much smaller share of hiring to operations and client support than banks?
3. In tech and operations postings, which is named more often?

Country totals · reference

Postings listing several countries count in each country.

Postings by country

United States of America57% · 6,918
United Kingdom9% · 1,135
India8% · 1,029
Canada6% · 671
SG3% · 327
HK2% · 259
Australia2% · 242
Germany2% · 200
Philippines1% · 144
Switzerland1% · 129
Ireland1% · 122
Poland1% · 119