The Keystone State is proving to be a key to the growth of tech jobs in the U.S. financial services industry.
A recent report from eFinancialCareers, a career website for the financial services sector, shows Pittsburgh and Philadelphia saw the biggest gains in postings for tech jobs in financial services from the first seven months of 2019 to the first seven months of 2020. The number of postings shot up by 69% in Pittsburgh and 63% in Philadelphia. Behind them were Irving, Texas (58%) and Raleigh, North Carolina (53%).
What’s driving the job surge in Pennsylvania? Part of it stems from who some of the largest employers in the state’s two biggest cities. In Pittsburgh, locally based PNC Financial Services Group ranks as the region’s fifth largest employer, with 12,500 workers. In the Philadelphia area, insurance company Lincoln Financial, student loan servicer Navient and insurance company Penn Mutual Life Insurance are among the major employers.
Furthermore, the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia is home to the fintech-dedicated Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance, while Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University houses the fintech-focused PNC Center for Financial Services Innovation within the Tepper School of Business.
In Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, it’s not just traditional banks and traditional insurers that are hiring techies within financial services. Fintech companies also are bulking up their workforces.
For instance, online lender Affirm – which recently filed confidentially to go public – announced in 2019 that it planned to hire 500 people in Pittsburgh over the next several years. Also last year, online lender Marlette Funding said it would add 250 jobs near the Philadelphia suburb of Wilmington, Delaware.
“The fintech industry is thriving. Innovation continues to transform this field and will do so for the foreseeable future. Job seekers eager to become a part of this growing domain are those who seek to redefine traditional methods with evolving technology,” staffing company Kforce says.
As for the volume of tech job postings across the U.S., the eFinancialCareers report says New York City comes in at No. 1, followed by:
- Charlotte, N.C.
- San Francisco.
- Chicago.
- Minneapolis.
- Boston.
- Jersey City, New Jersey.
- Phoenix.
- Austin, Texas.
- Columbus, Ohio.
The country’s most active hirers of tech talent in financial services, according to the report, are:
- Wells Fargo
- JPMorgan Chase
- U.S. Bank
- Capital One
- Citi
- PNC Bank
- American Express
- Charles Schwab
- Bank of America
- BNY Mellon
The most in-demand tech jobs in financial services, based on year-over-year growth, are:
- .NET engineer (49%).
- App support engineer (37%).
- IT auditor (31%).
- Systems engineer (30%).
- Cybersecurity consultant (28%).
Overall, eFinancialCareers says, competition for tech talent in financial services is heating up.
“U.S. financial institutions have had to prioritize positions they considered most vital to their organization amidst the uncertainty of 2020, especially to support teams that historically have less experience working remotely,” Art Zeile, CEO of DHI Group, parent company of eFinancialCareers, said in a news release.
“Since employees are now settled into remote work or planning a return to office, the range of positions in demand has expanded, speaking to the innovation and competition taking place in the financial sector as the demand for technologists continues to increase.”