Where?

Primarily the City of London and Docklands, but also opportunities outside London in most large cities such as Edinburgh and Leeds.

Employers?

All the investment and wholesale banks plus large asset managers.

Where does the role fit in?

In the Hollywood version of investment and wholesale banking, all you ever seem to see are people shouting down the telephone and making trades. What they never show you is what happens next. Sitting behind the traders is the 'back office'. These are the people who make things actually happen - see the diagram in Investment Banking Industry Guide.

In fact, some people refer to the 'back office' as anyone who works in the bank but doesn’t actually trade - including the so-called ‘deep back office’, which covers IT, personnel, accounts, and so on. However, in the main, the term 'back office' is usually taken to mean the area where trades are cleared and settled - in other words, the people who ensure that the right person ends up getting the shares and that the money they paid goes into the right account.

This is not as easy as it sounds, and this area is as technologically intensive as the front office. However, when mistakes are made, it is usually sorted out with a phone call, and back office staff from different banks therefore tend to have very strong links.

The back office is a complicated place. It often has outposts in the front office, in the form of trade support staff, often called assistants, who sit with the dealers, helping them to capture trades and entering them into systems, as well as sorting out problems.  Some banks now use these roles as introductory paths for future traders and therefore demand good degrees from top universities from people hoping to enter these jobs.

Once a trade is made, it goes to confirmation where staff make sure that the dealers have entered all the details correctly, and that the counter party (the person you have traded the shares with) has the same information.

Finally, the trade goes for clearing and settlement and the shares (or whatever it is) are sent to the right investor and the right payment is made.

The reality is that, increasingly, these processes are becoming automated. However, the increase in the scale of the markets means there are still plenty of back office jobs. With much of the work now handled by computer, staff usually only need to intervene in the case of particularly complex trades, or where a trade goes wrong for some reason. As a result, the rewards for those specialising in such work can be very high.

In general, major institutions have their own back office infrastructures; however, in some parts of the market they will outsource, as do a number of the smaller firms. One of the key independent clearing and settlement agents is a company called Pershing, http://www.pershing.com/europe/index.html, and it is a major player in this market. Larger banks also offer a number of back office and administration services to smaller rivals or to overseas banks. Citigroup and BNP Paribas, for example, have made back office operations one of the services they sell to other banks.

What you need to get the job

Essential requirements are:

• numerical and written skills to a reasonable GCSE level
• an eye for accuracy — you need to be able to spot the error when (as often happens) the trader mistakenly keys in 1,000,000 shares, instead of 1,000!
• reliability
• honesty

As your career develops, you can either become a specialist in a particularly complex area, or move into the designing and building of new back office processes.

School leavers

Business banking is an entry point for both school leavers and graduates.

School leavers are likely to commence their career as customer service and sales representatives dealing with customers either in large branches or in contact centres. Experience could mean you will be able to enter the management programme, especially if you acquire relevant qualifications. Indeed, many banks are specifically looking to bolster their business banking teams with non-graduate entrants.

Graduate entry schemes

With an increasing need for strong analytical skills, most banks have a graduate entry path aimed specifically at the business and corporate banking business – normally for graduates in a business-related subject.

Those banks requiring graduate entry normally ask for a degree at 2:1 level or above – although most will accept a 2:2 from really exceptional candidates. Graduate entrants will often be inducted into the management trainee stream, with the potential for rapid progression. These formal graduate programmes will be very similar to other graduate programmes throughout the bank with the same pattern of development.

Qualifications and career progression

There are few specific qualifications in this area. The financial markets comprise dozens of interrelated but separate markets, so the key is to gain first-hand knowledge of one or more of them. Thereafter, further career progression can be via a number of different routes, some more formal than others.

Many banks will want to ensure that back office staff have an understanding of the markets in general. As a result, they may suggest that staff take general market qualifications such as the Securities and Investment Institute’s foundation qualification Introduction to Investment. This in turn could lead into a qualification such as the Certificate in Securities - a good one for those looking to move into the front office, since this is a regulatory qualification that most traders and sales people must have. Often, a bank will recommend that trade support staff take this qualification so that they gain a clearer understanding of the business in which they are operating.

However, the majority of staff will wish to specialise in operations, for which there are a number of relevant qualifications. The Securities and Investment Institute, for example, offers the Diploma in Investment Operations, which is ideal for people wanting a more strategic view of operations management, with its complex systems, processes and regulatory controls.

For those specialising in the area of documentary credits — vital components of international trade that ensure payments and working capital are available — the ifs School of Finance offers its Certified Documentary Credit Sprecialist (CDCS) qualification.

Many people wanting to achieve a senior management role in the back office can also develop expertise in:

• operations management and quality control
• regulation and compliance (compliance, incidentally, leads into a whole new career path — see Compliance Officer)
• project management
• systems and business analysis

The reality is that once you become a senior operations manager and take responsibility for the whole clearing and settlement process, you will probably be doing all of the above!

Those who can master the complexity of the systems, understand the challenges of regulation and have proved they are responsible, can aspire to be head of operations. These roles are important and well paid, and you can make an entire career out of them, unlike the staff in the front office who often have relatively short careers, especially in investment banks.

Income

Starting salaries

These vary by role.

£15,000 - £25,000 plus bonuses (which can be very large) for a trade support assistant.

£15,000 - £20,000 plus bonuses for a settlement officer.

Career incomes

These also vary according to the role.

£20,000 - £35,000 plus benefits and bonuses for a trade support assistant with some experience.

£20,000 - £35,000 plus bonuses for a settlement officer (again, some of these jobs are filled by contractors).

£40,000 - £50,000 plus benefits and bonuses for a trade support assistant with a good degree and strong mathematical skills, working in a complex product area.

£30,000 - £45,000 plus benefits and bonuses for an experienced settlements administrator/team leader.

£45,000 - £70,000 plus benefits and bonuses for a settlements manager.

£70,000 - £100,000 plus benefits and bonuses for head of operational controls.

£100,000 for a head of operations.