Robert Half, the compliance recruitment giant which owns the compliance consultancy Protiviti, has published its 'Salary Guide 2020' which outlines its expectations for the compliance job market for the rest of the year.

The survey's authors pause to note that job seekers are becoming more and more offhand with recruiters: "Today’s jobseekers are often receiving multiple job offers and would rather avoid confrontation and awkwardness than deliver bad news, so instead opt to cut-off communication with a hiring manager. This type of behaviour has been coined ‘professional ghosting’, and is increasing in popularity." Among the reasons why people do this, Robert Half has detected three main ones:

• the job seeker deciding that the process of applying for a job is too much trouble for that particular job;
• the job seeker having plenty of options and encountering a recruitment firm that was slow and unreliable in its responses; and
• a last-minute offer from the job seeker's current employer.

One-eighth of office workers are 'guilty' of doing this, according to the recruitment firm.

Recruiters often split job markets into percentiles and this is what Robert Half does in its survey. The first percentile (the bottom quarter of compliance pay, fixed at London rates) is for people who are new to a job or work in not-very-competitive markets in smaller organisations. The second percentile (25-50% of pay level) is for 'mid-weight professionals' with the necessary skills for their jobs and, typically, moderate competition for those jobs. The next percentile up (50-75%) is for salaries that hit the higher end of the scale, to be offered to compliance people with "strong skills sets, specialist certifications and above average experience." This is appropriate for use in complex or highly competitive markets. Last but not least, the top percentile is reserved for people with significantly more experience and specialised certifications than most. It is suitable for use in highly competitive markets and jobs with a great deal of responsibility in large organisations.

Wealth management, private clients and hedge firms are hiring people for middle-office roles and trade support roles, and the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive continues to affect hiring needs within hedge funds as organisations work towards compliance. Employers are looking for candidates with a high level of relevant skills but are also searching for specific soft skills. The most sought-after of the former skills are monitoring, AML/KYC, Excel, a 2.1 degree, Visual Basic and/or expertise in Excel, and first-time ACA passes. The most sought-after of the latter skills are effective communication, being influential, gravitas, personability and resilience/adaptability to change. Survey results show that 39% are looking for leadership qualities, 38% are looking for communication skills and 34% want adaptability.

Performance-based bonuses occur but are often set according to revenues, ranging from 5% in boutique businesses that earn less than £1 million in revenue to 25% in businesses that earn more than £250 million.