The 2026 Barclay Simpson Salary Survey & Recruitment Trends Guide: Risk Management & Modelling

Some teams are also reporting that staff shortages are beginning to negatively affect their performance — 62% of employers are experiencing problems and 18% of these state the issues are significant.

Yet, despite the impact of staff shortages, only around half (52%) of firms expect to hire additional risk management or modelling headcount this year. This is slightly down on the 54% who said they intended to hire in 2025.

Barriers to hiring

Firms told us they face a number of challenges when hiring in today’s market, and the most frequently cited was candidates’ compensation expectations. Nearly seven out of every 10 employers (69%) mentioned this as a factor.

Insufficient technical or regulatory knowledge was also a common complaint, with 64% claiming it is hindering their hiring efforts. Notably, however, these figures have fallen slightly from 71% and 69%, respectively, since our last report.

Top five recruitment challenges in risk management

Other factors have risen in importance though, including remote working policies. More than a third (34%) of organisations said this was a hiring challenge for them, while 40% admitted that their current approach to hybrid working was making it more difficult to recruit and retain staff.

Meanwhile, risk professionals are also reporting difficulties in securing a new role at the moment. More than half (53%) of respondents in our latest Candidate Survey said the biggest challenge was too few risk management and modelling jobs being advertised, while 37% believe advertised salaries and day rates are too low. However, 42% are also hesitant to move from their current role, indicating the importance of job security in the current climate.

What are the biggest challenges to securing a new role at the moment?

Given these factors, it is perhaps unsurprising that candidate confidence has slipped over the last year. In our last report, 85% of risk professionals said they were either ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ confident in the employment market, but this has since slipped to 81%.

Primary reasons for using interim, contract or co-source staff

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Market risk candidates

Operational and enterprise risk

There has been more activity across operational and enterprise risk jobs than in most other areas of risk that we cover, albeit demand remains patchy and concentrated within the buy side. Hiring typically comes in bursts, often with a relatively small number of firms looking to make several hires at once as they build out capability in specific areas.

Given that it is an employer-led recruitment market, firms’ expectations are also quite high. They are typically looking for candidates with a very specific combination of skills and experience that can be difficult to find. This is particularly common in teams that are still relatively small and are looking for senior professionals with niche skillsets who can help build or scale their operational risk frameworks.

“One skillset that has been particularly sought-after over the last year is platform-related expertise. Asset managers, pension funds and other buy-side firms need people who have experience of managing the risks associated with implementing and running their customer-facing platforms,” says Molly Phillips, Principal Consultant for Non-Financial Risk at Barclay Simpson.

“In some cases, this is because of direct feedback from the regulator after a review, so it is clearly an area that the FCA and PRA are paying attention to.”

While hiring has been stronger than in other areas of risk, candidate confidence among operational and enterprise risk professionals has still declined year on year. In our last report, 87% of respondents said they were optimistic about the job market, a figure that has fallen to 79% today.

Challenging recruitment processes were cited by 39% of candidates as a barrier to securing a new role, and this is consistent with what our consultants are seeing on the ground. It is not uncommon for organisations to get far into the recruitment process, only to delay or withdraw roles, which is frustrating for candidates and reflects the caution and lack of confidence businesses are currently showing.

Operational and enterprise risk candidates

Credit and prudential risk

Credit risk jobs and prudential risk jobs have followed different trajectories over the last 12 months.

The credit risk market has been reasonably buoyant, most notably within the area of private markets, where there has been a consistent flow of roles across 2025 and early 2026. Real assets — such as infrastructure and real estate alternatives — are especially busy, with insurance funds also seeking to add headcount in certain areas.

“Insurance funds need candidates with a strong understanding of solvency sensitivities and ratings. That is not always a straightforward transition from banking, and there tends to be fewer candidates with real assets experience,” says Antony Berou, Associate Director at Barclay Simpson.

Confidence among credit risk candidates has dropped, however, with just 14% stating they are very confident about the job market — this figure has halved from 28% in the previous year. Nearly two-thirds (65%) cite a lack of jobs as the main challenge they face at the moment.

Credit risk candidates

Meanwhile, prudential risk has been much quieter overall, with relatively few roles being advertised and widespread candidate availability. As a result, when vacancies do arise, there is usually strong competition and employers are able to fill jobs themselves quickly.

Despite this, candidate confidence remains reasonably strong among prudential risk candidates. A quarter of professionals within the discipline are very confident about opportunities within the job market — the highest proportion across all the risk areas we surveyed. But as with credit risk, a lack of jobs being advertised was the biggest challenge to securing a new role, with 58% of prudential risk professionals mentioning it.

Prudential risk candidates

Investment risk

Investment risk has followed a similar pattern to market risk over the past year, in that activity has generally been subdued with few signs of a sustained pickup. Again, these pressures have been most visible at the very senior end, with some Heads of Investment Risk experiencing job losses.

This has reduced hiring at the top, with responsibilities that would previously have sat with a head of function now typically distributed across asset class leads, who report directly into the Chief Risk Officer, leaving fewer management layers overall.

“Aside from some limited junior hiring and a slight rise in demand for technical skills, which is likely related to AI growth, job volumes remain down,” says Josh Lawson, Senior Director of UK Risk at Barclay Simpson.

“Unlike other areas of risk, hiring within investment risk jobs is less influenced by regulation and more by client expectations. As long as portfolios are performing well and seen to be appropriately managed from a risk perspective, there is less pressure on firms to expand teams.”

With fewer opportunities on the horizon, confidence among investment risk professionals has dropped considerably since our last report. The proportion of respondents who say they are ‘not at all’ confident about the state of the market has climbed from 19% to 31%. That said, the share of candidates who are ‘very’ confident has remained broadly stable at 22% (versus 23% in 2024).

According to professionals, the key challenges for securing a new job are too few roles being advertised (63%) and a reluctance to switch from their current role (53%).

Investment risk candidates

Risk modelling

After a sustained period of active hiring across risk modelling jobs in the post-pandemic years, the market has been quieter over the last 12 months. A combination of offshoring, automation and redundancies at the senior level reduced demand in what has been one of the busiest areas of risk in recent years.

Key reforms such as Basel 3.1 and the PRA’s SS1/23 regulation did not translate into the levels of hiring that might have been expected, at least not in the UK. Similarly, AI governance and model oversight has required additional support, but some large organisations have sought to offshore this work to more junior staff overseas or upskill or retrain their existing employees.

“Risk modelling recruitment was extremely active in the years up to 2025, but the market has not been able to maintain this momentum over the last 18 months. Budgetary constraints have been a key driver, with many firms ramping up automation and offshoring to cut costs,” says Scott Nye, Executive Consultant for Quant Risk at Barclay Simpson.

These changes in the market appear to be affecting candidate confidence. The proportion of risk modelling professionals who are optimistic about the job market fell from 79% to 72% between 2024 and 2025. Those who are ‘very’ confident have nearly halved from 21% to 12%. A lack of jobs was the biggest challenge for the majority of candidates, with 61% highlighting this as a problem they face, while 43% point to salaries or day rates being too low.

Risk modelling candidates

US risk management and modelling

The market for risk management and modelling jobs in the US has had its bright spots over the past year, but broader economic and geopolitical uncertainties continue to weigh down the employment market.

Unfortunately, strong equity markets have not translated into confidence in hiring because underlying economic growth has remained relatively weak and banks are showing caution against a backdrop of volatility. In practice, that has meant fewer external searches, with many firms relying on internal moves or a small group of trusted agencies.

“Recent changes to the H-1B visa regime — including higher costs and stricter requirements — have added further impediments to hiring, particularly for firms reliant on international talent,” says Jon Muqolli, Senior Consultant for Risk and Quants at Barclay Simpson.

“Nonetheless, regulation has driven pockets of demand in certain areas, particularly across credit and liquidity risk, where stronger control frameworks are now required for US firms.”

There has been more movement on the buy side, especially in the front office of high-frequency trading firms, where hiring for quant researchers has been quite consistent. Crypto is also a growth area, with new firms building out their risk and compliance teams as the regulatory picture becomes clearer due to the Genius Act.

However, activity has been more limited elsewhere. Some hedge funds are restructuring their risk departments, which has resulted in job losses for Heads of Risk and other senior risk managers. Market risk and modelling are also less active overall.

How is AI success measured in risk?

It is difficult to predict how AI will affect risk jobs in the near future, but there is overwhelming consensus among professionals that the technology will have a significant impact on their roles. According to Moody’s, 100% of respondents they surveyed said it would affect them directly.

Of these, the majority are optimistic, with 80% claiming their roles will remain but evolve. Just 20% think jobs within their area of expertise are at risk of being reduced or deskilled because of AI.

Risk professionals sceptical of AI in recruitment

AI is a hot topic worldwide at the moment, but it appears that both organisations and candidates have reservations about how the technology is used in recruitment.

Our surveys show that 75% of risk management and modelling professionals believe AI worsens recruitment processes. This scepticism extends to utilising AI themselves, with less than a fifth (19%) saying they have tried to improve their chances during a job application by using the technology

What impact does AI have on recruitment processes?

Employers were even more sceptical. More than half (56%) don’t currently use it in their processes, and seven out of 10 agreed with candidates that it makes recruitment neither more efficient nor more effective. Just 6% believe it achieves both. Of the organisations currently utilising AI in their recruitment, it was most commonly used for CV screening and shortlisting (59.5%); writing and targeting job ads (50%); and interview support (34%).

However, a third of employers view AI as a threat to their recruitment processes. The biggest concerns centre around the integrity of information provided on CVs (70%), the quality of candidate sourcing and selection (57%) and AI-enabled impersonation (46%).

What concerns you most about AI’s impact in recruitment?