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Half of UK finance workers want career change due to pandemic, survey says

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Almost half UK finance workers want to change job despite pandemic
The head of the CBI Carolyn Fairbairn has called on UK firms to return to the office to revive the ailing economy.

The coronavirus pandemic has caused workers in the UK finance industry to second-guess their career choice, with 44 per cent considering moving jobs, according to a new report.

Among those City workers looking for a change, 13 per cent said they wanted to leave the sector altogether. That figure rose to 16 per cent for 18 to 30-year-olds, according to a survey from KPMG and the Financial Services Skills Commission (FSSC).

The coronavirus pandemic has battered the UK employment market. Figures from earlier this month showed that the country has shed almost 750,000 jobs since the start of the lockdown in March.

But the UK also faces a permanent change in the way people work. A survey of 50 large employers by the BBC yesterday found none of them had plans to return all staff to the office full-time in the near future.

KPMG and the FSSC asked more than 600 finance workers in July whether the coronavirus pandemic had caused them to consider a career change, and 44 per cent answered “yes”.

Time away from offices spurs change

Karim Haji, head of financial services at KPMG, said: “As we spend more time at home away from our colleagues and offices, it makes sense that many will be questioning their current roles and choices.”

Roughly a third – 31 per cent – of workers said they would look for a new role wither within or outside finance by the end of the year.

Of those who wanted to quit finance, 15 per cent cited long hours as a reason. Long commutes were blamed by around 13 per cent of people, meanwhile.

Haji said finance must dispel certain beliefs about the sector, including that it has “conservative employee policies”. Yet he said that “some of the work on this is already underway”, spurred on by the pandemic.

Claire Tunley, CEO of the Financial Services Skills Commission, said: “The sector has a real opportunity to learn from the experience of the pandemic to create a strengthened employee offering, building on its existing reputation for good pay and progression.”