Almost 90% of proprietary trading firms are planning to increase their trading headcount throughout the remainder of this year, new research by Acuiti and Avelacom has found.
According to the report, the expected boost in headcount follows a period of strong performance by prop firms and marks significant uptick from last year’s survey which found just 63% of firms preparing to expand their trading teams.
Wage appreciation in trading remained high with around 50% of those surveyed noting up to a 10% increase for trading roles in the last year but had slowed in comparison with previous years. The UK saw the greatest jump followed by the US.
“The last few years have been strong ones in terms of business performance for many proprietary trading firms,” said Ross Lancaster, head of research at Acuiti. “As wage appreciation slows, firms have the confidence to expand their teams and continue to grow their businesses.”
The report also found that just under a fifth of proprietary trading firms surveyed that outsource their trading screens to an independent software vendor (ISV) are currently planning to build inhouse systems.
When asked how firms were planning to change their headcount throughout 2024, hiring developers was the second priority after hiring new trading talent, with around 75% of those surveyed expected to add new staff in this area.
According to the report, 31% of firms surveyed already build their trading screens in-house while 28% use upwards of four providers.
Those firm’s building front ends in house were mainly ultra-low latency firms and firms using predominantly algo but not ultra-low latency. None of the point and click firms surveyed said they built front ends in house.
Around 45% of firms surveyed, when asked how satisfied they were with the cost of third-party technology providers, said they were either quite or very unsatisfied.