How We See Financial Firms Are Evolving Their Hiring in 2025
While national labor data points to steady demand across financial services, our vantage point tells a more nuanced story. Over the past year, we’ve observed a modest contraction in overall hiring volume, particularly among mid-sized investment and advisory firms that may be pausing expansion or operating with leaner teams.
However, demand has not disappeared — it has shifted. The most consistent growth we’ve seen in 2025 has come from Private Wealth Management, where firms are selectively adding headcount to strengthen client experience and operational continuity. In many cases, these organizations are expanding not because of new asset inflows, but to support increasingly complex compliance requirements, multi-generational client structures, and the integration of new technology platforms.
Functional Hotspots
Across our recent mandates, four functions stand out as the most active areas of hiring:
Legal & Compliance – driven by expanding fiduciary oversight, SEC audit activity, and heightened due diligence expectations.
Accounting & Finance – reflecting both succession planning and the need for stronger internal controls as firms scale.
Client Service & Operations – as wealth managers focus on retention and seamless client engagement, particularly in hybrid service models.
Investor Relations / Business Development – though selective, these roles are being added to deepen client relationships and maintain revenue stability amid market volatility.
These functional trends suggest a recalibration — firms may be hiring less, but they are hiring more strategically, prioritizing resilience, compliance, and client continuity over growth for growth’s sake.
What This Reveals
Our data underscores an important reality: external recruiting demand tends to spike where internal capacity and specialization reach their limits. Firms with lean HR structures or limited bandwidth are turning to external partners for highly specific roles — especially those that intersect finance, regulation, and client trust.
In short, 2025’s job market in financial services appears to be more selective, more compliance-conscious, and more operationally grounded than the broader economic narrative might suggest.
