Three quarters of finance staff now counter-offered

– Three quarters of finance professionals now counter-offered

– Driven by demand for “leaders of the future” as jobs market heats up

– Counter-offers now need to be at least 16% of salary to be accepted

– And 37% of employees say even if they accepted, they’d stay for less than a year

Counter-offers – pay rises proposed by desperate bosses to employees who announce they are resigning for a new job – are now rife in the financial service’s job market, according to specialist recruiter Randstad Finance & Professional.

In a typical year in the middle of the economic cycle, one in every five finance professionals threatening to resign is counter-offered. Currently, three quarters of all finance staff are receiving counter-offers.

Tara Ricks, managing director, Randstad Financial & Professional, said: “While counter-offers have been a feature of the City hiring process for decades they’ve never been this prevalent. Even in early 2008, when risk professionals were rarer than hen’s teeth, only 40% of risk professionals were getting buybacks. This is a candidate driven market and employers are doing all they can to hang on to key staff. Where this used to be the reserve of American investment banks, counter-offers are now being made to audit and tax professionals. Newly qualified accountants are also getting a lot. As the increased importance of human capital and the scarcity of high flyers has dawned on the sectors biggest employers, there has been a profound change in their willingness to fight to retain their A-Players. Not only are the banks and the large professional services firms desperate to recruit, they are prepared to scrap to hold onto the right people. The end result is counter-offers have increased in both frequency and scale.”

Counter-offers are expensive – and they don’t necessarily work

The average pay increase that finance professional would need to turn down a new job offer is 16% of their existing salary – the equivalent of £6,567 now that the average national wage for a chartered and certified accountant stands at £41,011 . But with Assistant Treasurers at FTSE100 (or equivalent private and non-listed groups) earning up to £170,000 in London and regional heads of compliance earning up to £230,000 counter-offers can cost financial services employers £36,800.