5 Hot Careers In Finance
#1 Compliance Expert
The compliance specialist has many titles in the finance industry. Examples include Compliance Analyst, Compliance Manager, Lending Compliance Officer, Financial Risk Manager, KYC Officer,” and more. Compliance is posed to grow ever more important in years to come, as the regulatory burden imposed on financial organizations continues to increase.
Compliance is noteworthy because (as verified in a Reuters report) it, along with legal and risk management, is the only sub-section of the financial industry that has seen steady job growth since the financial crisis of 2008.
Marks Sattin says that the Compliance Officer was even recently crowned as “the Hottest Job in America” by the Wall Street Journal.
The new regulatory environment has brought compliance out of the shadows of support work and turned it into a starring role in finance.
#2 Cybersecurity
Because hackers and other digital criminals tend to seek out the most lucrative paydays, financial institutions always top their list of favorite targets.
After compiling wide-ranging data for 2016, IBM’s X-Force research organization pegged the financial services industry as the leading target of cyberattacks, with businesses in the industry suffering attacks at a rate 65 percent higher than the average for all businesses.
This explains the high demand for skilled cybersecurity specialists. This niche also suffers from a limited supply of qualified experts, so compensation for skilled candidates can be very high.
Cybersecurity Ventures recently released a report on their field that predicted a 300% jump in the number of cybersecurity job openings in the next five years. The same report also predicts that 3.5 million of those tempting positions will go unfilled through 2021.
#3 Wealth Management
Forbes notes that sheer demographic pressure is causing a boom in wealth management services. Baby Boomers who are retiring or passing away are transferring their wealth to younger generations.
This is not simply a growth in the field; modern clients demand more flexibility and efficiency from the firms that manage their wealth.
Wealth management specialists need to be more adaptable than ever before to guide their clients through a world of perpetual disruption where circumstances change rapidly and investors come to rely more on digital tools and advice in managing their money.
The new digital landscape is not a threat to the wealth management field, though. The rapid shifting of the landscape only increases the need for skilled and insightful advisors who can tailor their services to the needs of the specific client. Banking software creator
Temenos teamed up with Forbes to survey High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) on wealth management and found that demand for frequent human advising has not fallen.
Though the ever-increasing range of digital and automated wealth management tools is appreciated, 62 percent of the HNWIs responding to the survey said they still desired regular face-to-face meetings with an advisor. Technology has a dramatic impact on wealth management, but it shows no signs of replacing the all-important human touch.
#4 Data Specialist
The World Economic Forum recently partnered with Deloitte to study how digital trends affect the financial industry, and their findings stressed the strategic role that data will play in the future of finance.
Institutions need to recognize and take full advantage of the potential of new customer and market data sets unlocked by emerging technologies.
More and more clients are taking full advantage of the information-sharing possibilities of the internet and learning all they can about their finances. This has lead to a growth in “prosumers” who are most interested in receiving financial services tailored to their changing individual needs.
Smart data manipulation will be an absolute necessity in identifying and meeting those needs. The insights generated by Data Scientists, Financial Data Analysts, and Chief Data Officer will only grow more valuable as time goes on.
#5 Innovation Officer
In a fast-changing and brutally competitive industry, most financial service organizations consider innovation to be the most powerful weapon in their arsenal.
This is particularly notable at the executive level. An executive survey conducted by the Corporate Executive Board and PwC found that 61 percent of CEOS assign a high priority to innovation. Across all executives, there was a widespread (75 percent) worry that their organizations might suffer a shortage of new ideas.
As a result of this high-level concern over innovation, the Chief Innovation Officer role is poised to take over from the Chief Technology Officer as the new lynchpin of the C-suite.
