Market Update Q2 2014 - Pinpoint Asia

I wanted to take this opportunity to give you a brief update on the IT market for Q2 2014. At Pinpoint Asia, we specialise in two main sectors (a) Finance Technology (b) Hi-Tech/Commerce sector.

The main trends are below:

FINANCE TECHNOLOGY

In spite of news surrounding redundancies at banks, Q2 saw a pickup in hiring volumes. This is due to Q2 generally being the busiest quarter for hiring, following the attrition after the pay and bonus reviews. Also, banks have been curtailing staff numbers in unprofitable areas, hence the layoffs in areas like Fixed Income for some companies, and investing in what they perceive to be growth areas, such as, hiring in areas like Equities.

Types of roles:
We have seen a growing need for candidates in the following areas:

Compliance/Risk/Regulatory roles: Continuing on from Q1, we saw an increase in hiring volumes in the Compliance/Risk/Regulatory space including some very senior hires at ED level. Technologists with prior experience in these areas have been in demand, including, Java developers, Support guys and Business Analysts.

Support roles:We have seen a lot of roles in the Support space. Candidates with mission critical trading floor application support experience, especially in the Equities space and some in the Fixed Income space, have been in demand. This has also been the case with brokers and other securities firms.

Java Developers: On the development side, Java developers (on the Core Java/multithreading side) continue to be in great demand. There seems to be a genuine dearth of good Java developers with sound knowledge of multi- threading and fundamental Java development knowledge. Hence, banks are now looking to find experienced developers from overseas too.

Project Managers/Program Managers: On the Insurance front, we continue to see requirements for Project Managers/Programme Managers for new initiatives including major consolidation projects and expansion projects.

HI- TECH/COMMERCE SECTOR

Market’s general performance:

The commerce sector has also seen an increase in hiring volumes last
quarter. The economy seems to be doing better and with it, it has
brought more hiring in this space.

Java Developers: J2EE Developers (JEE, Websphere, AJAX, JS, SQL) continue to be in good demand. Those with a creative mind with above average communication skills are especially sought after.

UX/UI roles: A lot of companies are talking about finding quality UX/UI candidates. Especially, those who also have knowledge of Big Data and an understanding of technologies such as NoSQL, Hadoop and so on.

C#/ASP/.NET roles:Candidates with a strong fundamental knowledge of C#/ASP.NET with large enterprise level experience have been sought after by our commerce clients. Again, communication skills have been emphasized upon. Good .NET developers with enterprise level experience have been hard to find.

Infrastructure roles:General infrastructure support roles (Desktop Support/Network Support/Windows administrators) have been in good demand too. Companies across the board have been hiring in this area.

Also, several new Hi Tech firms have been setting up data centers in Hong Kong and there has been a lot of hiring in the infrastructure space mainly pertaining to equipping and running these data centers

Overall Outlook:

We are optimistic about the levels of hiring through the remainder of this year. There has been a steady expansion trend since last year and we expect this to continue for the remainder of the year.
Vince Natteri,
Director

Candidate Salary Survey Results:

In Q1, we asked our candidates to complete our salary survey. Thank you to those of you who participated in the survey, we hope the lucky winners enjoyed their Starbucks coupon!

Here are the results of the top 8 questions asked:

Finance Technology

Commercial Banking	Officer	<HKD300,000
	Analyst or equivalent	HKD300,000 – 500,000
	Associate or equivalent	HKD400,000 – 600,000
	VP or equivalent	HKD700,000 – 1,100,000

Investment Banking	Analyst	HKD360,000 – 600,000
	Associate	HKD450,000 – 950,000
	AVP	HKD650,000 – 1,000,000
	VP	HKD900,000 – 1,500,000
	ED	HKD1,400,000 – 2,100,000

High Tech

IT Service Providers	Officer	<HKD240,000
	Analyst	HKD240,000 – 480,000
	Manager	HKD480,000 – 800,000
	Director	HKD800,000 +

Telecommunications	Analyst	HKD300,000 – 600,000
	Manager	HKD600,000 – 900,000
	Director	HKD900,000 +

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