Want a Trading Job? Go to a Prop Firm: Survey

A survey has found that almost 90% of executives at prop trading firms are planning to increase trading headcount in 2024, although rather than the pre promise of increased volatility as many countries around the world head to the polls, the survey says it is more thanks to a period of strong performance.

The latest Acuiti Propietary Trading Management Insight Report also finds that developer headcount is also set to grow in 2024 as 75% of firms planned an increase. The plans to hire traders represent a significant increase on 2023 when just 58% of firms planned to increase headcount in this role, Acuiti says, however, demand for operations executives and network engineers has fallen compared with 2023.

The planned hiring comes as firms reported that wage appreciation had slowed, although it remained elevated for developer and network engineer roles, where wage increases of more than 25% year-on-year were not uncommon. In 2023, wage increases of 26%-50% were reported.

Almost a quarter of proprietary trading firms are considering bringing front-office technology in-house, and over 40% of firms not currently trading on Indian markets are considering doing so. The report also finds that prop firms that trade ETFs in Europe think proposals to increase financial penalties will not address settlement failure issues.

“The last few years have been strong ones in terms of business performance for many proprietary trading firms,” says 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.”

Aleksey Larichev, CEO of Avelacom – which sponsors the survey – adds, “We are glad to see such positive sentiment in our core market. This gives us the confidence to continue expanding our connectivity and IT infrastructure solutions across all global financial markets, and especially for critical use cases where low latency is a must.”