Talent on the move 2025

As the Vice President of Research & Insights at Kea Consultants, there are two questions which are always at the front of my mind:  

• Where does the best investing talent come from? 

• Are we ensuring our clients get access to it? 

It is through a focus on this second question that we challenge our own myopia. Is our essential product fit for purpose, how could it be expanded without compromising on its quality or integrity? Whilst we have a vast data set of both Kea and non-Kea moves into investing, dating back nearly a decade and giving us a very objective view of who moves, are we being reactive enough to current events? Are we thinking subjectively about who could challenge these data narratives? 

For the longest time the candidates who would move into investing roles were London-trained bankers. Now, as we see an increase in moves into investing from management consultants and from the continent, how is Kea keeping abreast of these changes and providing our clients with the greatest access to the best candidates, regardless of background? And crucially, how true are these narratives? Is this a fluke or should we prepare for this diversity of experience to be the norm going forwards?  

For the sake of this exploration, we’ll be looking at hiring from Management Consultancies and from the regional banking offices in Europe in 2024.  

Management Consultancies 

Consultants have historically been seen as an alternative talent pool, with investment bankers making up the majority of moves into investing and possessing a completely different skillset not relevant for many investment firms and strategies. Recent trends however suggest that this viewpoint is changing. 2024 saw the highest proportion of first moves into investing we’ve historically observed, 1 in 10 compared to a previous historical high of 1 in 13. 

There are many reasons why this may have changed: 

• Funds pursuing a diversity of background, experience and thought for their teams 

• Funds seeing the commercial benefits of consultative backgrounds in investing 

• Funds changing their focus from IBD to another talent pool in the pursuit of specific backgrounds or language skills 

• The increased size of PEG/PIPE groups in recent years  

Whatever the reason, it is clear that the market has found more comfort hiring consultant talent than ever before. Furthermore, this doesn’t appear to be slowing as consultant hiring in 2025, along the same parameters, has continued around this 10% of all initial moves into investing. We will continue to source, screen and promote the best consulting talent in the market to ensure funds who are interested and prepared for the experience consultants can bring to investing roles get access to it.  

Hiring from the Continent 

The vast majority of first-year analysts (77-79%) were based in London rather than in European offices between 2017 and 2022. In 2023, however, we saw a significant shift as the percentage of these first-year bankers based in London dropped to 71% across the banks, and 66% of Goldman Sachs’ 2023 class in particular. Considering the reports that half of the Goldman Sachs 2024 cohort’s return offers were dependent on relocation to a European office, it suggested a significant departure from the banks’ hiring conventions and how we would need to consider the investment banking talent pool. Indeed, we observed a ~10% increase in investing moves from London to European offices comparing 2023 to 2024 – was this a sign of things to come? 

Could this be banks and investors indexing on the continent post the UK’s departure from the EU single market? Could the moves be a reflection of the difficulty faced by international candidates post-Brexit, particularly relating to VISAs or a realignment of priorities in a post-Covid-19 pandemic landscape? Or perhaps the allure of new policies on the continent such as Italy’s tax incentives? 

Although the reasoning may be unclear, it was clear from the data that we would need to monitor both sell and buy-side hiring closely to stay ahead of these new trends. 

Although some hiring patterns look like they were reactionary, some look to be the new norm and as such we will continue to monitor the market closely to ensure that we address any changes in our sourcing efforts. It is essential that our product offering remains flexible, data led and pre-emptive rather than fully reactive so that we can continue to keep our clients in the best position to source their future talent.

For further insights into trends in the market or talent pools, please contact Dan Thomassen ([email protected]).