A new study from CMC Markets, an online trading platform, analysed monthly Google searches using Ahrefs for jobs within the financial industry to see which career is the most in demand.
They also extracted the number of UK-based listings for each finance role from the job site Indeed during the month of December 2022.
| Rank | Job Title | Total global Google searches |
| 1 | Auditor | 222,500 |
| 2 | Actuary | 166,600 |
| 3 | Corporate banking | 96,280 |
| 4 | Bank teller | 43,250 |
| 5 | Forensic accounting | 39,650 |
| 6 | Compliance officer | 35,170 |
| 7 | Client advisor | 29,080 |
| 8 | Loan officer | 22,950 |
| 9 | Branch manager | 18,560 |
| 10 | Risk manager | 17,430 |
Searches for ‘auditor’ ranked number one on the list with 222,500 monthly Google searches. People are searching 5,000 times on average a month for ‘auditor jobs’ and 500 times for ‘auditor careers’. There are currently 785 auditor jobs in the finance sector on Indeed.
Actuarial careers came closely behind as the second most sought-after job in finance with a combined 166,600 searches per month for ‘actuary careers’ and ‘actuary jobs’. An actuary was the only career within the insurance sector to make it into the top ten. There are currently 1,030 actuary jobs within the finance sector on Indeed.
The third most desirable finance career is corporate banking which amassed a total of 96,280 Google searches per month, 1,200 of which were for the search term ‘corporate banking jobs’. There are currently 3,748 corporate banking jobs on Indeed.
Another banking career took the fourth spot with bank teller totalling 43,250 Google searches every month, 12,000 of these monthly searches were for ‘bank teller jobs’. At present, there are only 35 bank teller jobs on Indeed.
In fifth place came forensic accounting with 39,650 Google searches per month and the sixth most in demand career in finance was a compliance officer with 35,170 monthly Google searches.
Despite being one of the ten most desirable finance jobs, forensic accounting only yields 64 job openings in the UK, according to Indeed. On the other hand, there are currently 6,685 compliance officer openings in the UK on Indeed.
With 29,080 Google searches a month, a client advisor was the seventh most searched for finance career and there are 811 job openings for client advisor roles on Indeed.
Loan officers and branch managers occupied the eighth and ninth place on the list with 22,950 and 18,560 monthly Google searches respectively. There are 1,744 roles on Indeed for both loan officers and branch managers in the UK.
The research found that the tenth most in demand job in finance is a risk manager with 17,430 monthly Google searches. There are currently 5,259 job openings on Indeed for risk manager roles in the UK.
Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets commented on the findings: “Despite the scarcity of jobs in some industries, it seems that there is a noticeable interest within different sectors of the finance world.
“It is interesting to see that a large proportion of this number is made up of searches related to the banking sector. And as a whole, financial careers are being searched for 2,935,840 times per month on Google.
“This number is definitely something to keep an eye on as we approach the new year, as people may look to seek new opportunities in 2023.”
Full table of Data below:
KEY
| Accounting | Insurance | Investment Banking | Banking |
| Sector | Job title | General term | “Jobs” searches | “Careers” searches | Total |
| Accounting | 889000 | 39000 | 5600 | 933600 | |
| Auditor | 217000 | 5000 | 500 | 222500 | |
| Forensic accounting | 36000 | 3400 | 250 | 39650 | |
| Corporate accounting | 14000 | 600 | 0 | 14600 | |
| Payroll accounting | 5900 | 500 | 20 | 6420 | |
| Insurance | 693000 | 14000 | 2800 | 709800 | |
| Actuary | 159000 | 6400 | 1200 | 166600 | |
| Insurance investigator | 2400 | 1600 | 20 | 4020 | |
| Insurance consultant | 3000 | 300 | 0 | 3300 | |
| Claims Officer | 250 | 100 | 0 | 350 | |
| Investment banking | 95000 | 6400 | 1100 | 102500 | |
| Compliance officer | 32000 | 3100 | 70 | 35170 | |
| Client advisor | 29000 | 80 | 0 | 29080 | |
| Risk manager | 14000 | 3400 | 30 | 17430 | |
| Investment analyst | 8500 | 2600 | 80 | 11180 | |
| Banking | 425000 | 29000 | 4600 | 458600 | |
| Corporate banking | 95000 | 1200 | 80 | 96280 | |
| Bank teller | 31000 | 12000 | 250 | 43250 | |
| Loan officer | 19000 | 3700 | 250 | 22950 | |
| Branch manager | 17000 | 1500 | 60 | 18560 |
