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Hiring across financial services is entering a more selective phase. Headcount remains under scrutiny, yet investment continues where capability is tied to growth, resilience and regulatory delivery. It is a selective market, with investment concentrated in capabilities that can also be among the hardest to secure. In that context, protecting your workforce agility means resisting blanket hiring restraint and identifying the banking and financial skills the business cannot afford to delay, dilute or lose.
55% of banking and financial services firms planned to increase hiring during 2026, with recruitment driven largely by demand for AI expertise. However, as we move forward into 2027, continued economic uncertainty, rising employment costs, changing employment legislation and workforce governance expectations are increasing scrutiny around hiring.
But such scrutiny should not lead to a sudden or impulsive hiring freeze. Stopping or delaying hiring can create operational strain and areas of exposure. Instead, banks and FS firms need to assess the risks of making a hire, and of not making a hire.
The Financial Services Skills Commission estimates that, by 2035, the sector could lose up to 450,000 of its 780,000 highly skilled workforce through turnover or retirement, while demand for those capabilities intensifies across the economy. A short-term hiring pause does not remove that structural competition for talent.
Equally, cybersecurity recruitment and operational resilience capability are more than a headcount issue. The Bank of England’s operational resilience framework reinforces the need for firms to prevent, adapt, respond to and recover from disruption, including cyberattacks, IT outages and third-party failures.
A delayed cyber appointment can slow remediation. An unfilled data or AI leadership role can hold back approved investment. A gap in risk, compliance or regulatory transformation can create pressure when controls and delivery need to be strongest
Blanket controls can look disciplined while obscuring which roles carry the greatest strategic value. Investment is continuing in AI, technology, cyber, risk, regulation and transformation and firms should be clear around which capabilities directly protect the organisation’s ability to deliver its strategy in these areas. Successful AI adoption in particular depends on leadership, governance, high-quality data, cyber security and modern systems, alongside the people able to apply judgement around them.
Leadership teams need a shared method for separating discretionary headcount from capability needed to:
This is where workforce agility allows organisations to direct scarce skills towards areas where delay carries the greatest operational, regulatory or commercial consequence.
Additional approvals and stronger governance only become a problem when they produce more steps or create drift. Managed well they can strengthen hiring decisions.
Speed remains important in AI, transformation, cyber security recruitment and risk and compliance recruitment, where experienced professionals may have multiple options. A slow process can mean restarting a search, accepting a narrower shortlist or placing more pressure on an already stretched team.
For business-critical searches, leadership teams should be clear before going to market on:
If a role is essential to a regulatory programme, resilience objective or strategic transformation, each additional approval stage should have a clear purpose.
The aim is not speed at the expense of assessment. Instead focus on building workforce agility supported by decisive, well-designed governance.
The permanent-versus-contract decision matters because not every priority requires the same type of capability. Your hiring model is an important choice when it comes to workforce agility and one which should be made deliberately. Particularly in light of the phased introduction of the Employment Rights Act.
From 1 January 2027, the qualifying period for ordinary unfair dismissal is scheduled to reduce from two years to six months, while the cap on compensatory awards will be removed. The response should be stronger hiring processes, not avoiding permanent recruitment by default.
However, flexibility should not be treated as a way around employment or workforce risk. The key is to start with the work, rather than a preferred employment model.
Technical expertise is essential, but it is rarely enough in senior or specialist financial services appointments. Assessment should test how a candidate applies knowledge in context. That is, how they make decisions with incomplete information, challenge senior stakeholders, balance commercial priorities with control requirements and explain complex issues clearly.
Senior hires also need the ability to secure investment, influence behaviour and make proportionate risk decisions. In risk and compliance recruitment, candidates may need to interpret regulation, design workable controls and challenge the business constructively. Transformation leaders need to connect technology delivery with finance, operations, customers and risk.
Workforce agility depends on people who can operate across those boundaries, not only specialists who can perform a narrow technical task.
A contingent workforce can give banks and financial services firms faster access to specialist capability, particularly during transformation or regulatory change. It does not remove the need for oversight. Flexible models can support delivery, but contractor governance, employment status, IR35, onboarding controls and working practices still require appropriate attention.
In financial services, that governance also intersects with information security, access to sensitive systems, third-party risk, knowledge transfer and accountability for regulated activity. Using a contingent workforce well means treating flexibility as a managed capability, not a route around workforce risk.
Financial services hiring is not recovering uniformly. Investment is being concentrated in AI, technology, cyber, risk, regulation and transformation, precisely the areas where capability can have the greatest impact on resilience and future performance.
Protecting workforce agility requires more than controlling headcount. It requires leadership teams to identify essential skills early, choose the right permanent or flexible workforce model, assess for judgement as well as expertise and move with purpose once a hiring decision has been made.
Goodman Masson combines specialist Banking & Financial Services recruitment knowledge with expertise across technology, risk and transformation hiring. We support permanent, interim and contract recruitment, helping organisations secure critical capability while strengthening the decisions and governance around how talent is engaged.
Download The New Hiring Risk report to understand how the Employment Rights Act, workforce cost and governance expectations are changing the wider hiring risk calculation.
Or contact Goodman Masson for Banking & Financial Services recruitment support.
Protect workforce agility in financial services by identifying critical AI, cyber, risk and transformation skills, while strengthening hiring governance. Today.
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