The quarterly report, which was released today and is produced in partnership with Avelacom, is based on a survey of the Acuiti Proprietary Trading Expert Network, a group of senior executives at over 100 global proprietary trading firms and provides insights into the key trends facing the community.
The report found that developer headcount was 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. 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. However, in 2023, wage increases of 26%-50% were reported.
Ross Lancaster, head of research at Acuiti said: “The last few years have been strong ones in terms of business performance for many proprietary trading firms As wage appreciation slows, firms have the confidence to expand their teams and continue to grow their businesses.”
Aleksey Larichev, CEO of Avelacom, said: “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”.
Other key findings in this quarter’s report include:
- Almost a quarter of proprietary trading firms are considering bringing front-office technology in-house
- Over 40% of firms not currently trading on Indian markets are considering doing so
- Prop firms that trade ETFs in Europe think proposals to increase financial penalties will not address settlement failure issues
In addition, we cover concentration concerns, attitudes to new exchange launches and contract competition, and quarterly sentiment.
Download the full report here: https://www.acuiti.io/proprietary-trading-management-insight-report-q2-2024
