Non-British junior bankers in London are being locked out of jobs
A London recruitment firm is advertising a (comparatively rare in this market) vacancy for an associate to work in technology, media and telecoms M&A. The job comes with a few requirements: you need M&A experience; you also need a right to work in the UK without visa sponsorship.
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For a growing number of applicants, this is a problem.
Junior financial services professionals who've had unfettered access to the UK jobs market are feeling the winds of change. Earlier this month, the UK government issued a white paper on regaining control over the immigration system. Among other things, the paper proposed to reduce the length of time students can work on a graduate visa from two years to 18 months and to increase the standard qualifying period for permanent residence in the UK from five years to ten years.
This hasn't happened yet, but in the post-Brexit employment landscape, recruiters say that non-British, non-permanent resident bankers are already being penalised in the jobs market. Particularly at the junior end.
"At the more junior end, we've seen more clients stating they would prefer to focus on candidates with UK citizenship," says James Warnaby, head of recruitment firm Selby Jennings in London. If you don't have UK citizenship, Warnaby says there's not much you can do, beyond demonstrating that you'll really add value in the job and stressing that you'd like to stay at the bank for a long time and won't simply move on once a visa has been arranged.
Lazo Cetnik, an investment banking and private equity recruiter at Pretraga Partners in London, says the visa issue has become more prominent in a tough jobs market where banks are trying to save on costs. When all costs are factored in, sponsoring someone on a visa can cost banks £10k+. "If there are two candidates of equal stature and one doesn't require sponsorship, there's a tendency to go for the candidate without the visa requirement," says Cetnik.
Visas matter less for senior bankers and for people with niche skills as the sponsorship cost is lower as a proportion of pay, and similar staff can't always be found among UK citizens. However, as we've noted before, the situation is particularly harsh for international students at UK universities who have no work experience to differentiate themselves and who now face being ejected from the country after 18 months.
"A lot of people are in a dark spot," one international student at a top UK university tells us. "I have friends whose parents have sold major assets to pay for their education here and now they have to find a job in a limited time window or no one will sponsor them to stay."
The visa issues seem at odds with the revelation that JPMorgan's European interns mostly come from non-British universities, but it's possible that the interns are relocated to Paris and elsewhere.
If you're an overseas candidate who wants to work in London now, the solution seems to be gaining experience overseas and then arriving as a senior professional with something special to offer. European bankers who've been in London for a while say they feel sorry for the new juniors: "I'm lucky - I came here a while ago and I have leave to remain," said one.
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