The wider UK labour market is cautious, and financial services feels it too. The Low Pay Commission describes today's market as 'low hire, low fire', with weaker recruitment but only slight increases in redundancies, and vacancies sitting below pre-pandemic levels Low Pay Commission Report 2025, GOV.UK. That means fewer roles come to market, so the ones that do are more carefully defined.
There are bright spots. The ONS reports that professional, scientific and technical activities saw the largest volume increase in vacancies between August and October 2025, up by 5,000 ONS – Vacancies and jobs in the UK: November 2025. Treasury analyst roles sit in this professional-services band, where demand for specialist, numerate skills holds up even when general hiring slows.
One shift matters for banks planning their pipelines: entry-level hiring has softened sharply. Adzuna data cited by techUK shows a 30% drop in UK entry-level job postings since ChatGPT launched, leaving graduates in the toughest market since 2018 techUK – What's actually happening with entry-level and graduate jobs?. If you rely on junior treasury talent to grow your own analysts, that pipeline is thinner than it was.
A treasury analyst keeps the bank's money working safely. That covers liquidity management, funding, cash forecasting, interest-rate and foreign-exchange risk, and the regulatory reporting that sits underneath all of it. The core hasn't changed. What's changed is how much data fluency now sits alongside it.
Demand for AI and data capability is reshaping expectations across financial and technical roles. Accenture data reported by The Register shows demand for AI skills rose nearly 200% in a year The Register (Accenture data). For treasury, this shows up as a preference for analysts who can build models, query large datasets and automate reporting, not just read a spreadsheet.
Employers also value how people learn. The government's AI Labour Market Survey found apprenticeships rose from 3% of AI hires in 2020 to 19% in 2025 GOV.UK / DSIT – AI Labour Market Survey 2025 report. That points to a broader route into technical finance roles: banks are open to growing skills, not only buying them ready-made. For a treasury team, that widens the pool beyond the classic accounting or economics graduate.
Start with a job description that separates the must-haves from the nice-to-haves. In a low-hire market, over-specified adverts scare off good people. Name the two or three technical skills that genuinely matter, liquidity and funding knowledge, a modelling tool, one relevant regulation, and let the rest be things you can teach.
Test judgement, not just knowledge. A treasury analyst spends the day reacting to market moves and regulatory rules, so a short scenario, 'funding costs jump this morning, what do you check first?', tells you more than a list of qualifications. Ask how they'd explain a liquidity position to someone outside finance. Clear communication is a real skill here.
Widen your pipeline while you can. With entry-level postings down and graduates facing a tight market techUK – What's actually happening with entry-level and graduate jobs?, banks that build apprenticeship and early-careers routes now will have stronger internal treasury talent in three years. Move quickly, too: in a cautious market the best analysts are approached by several employers at once, so a slow process loses them.
When you need a treasury analyst, Reed.ai searches a database of 15 million candidates and returns a ranked shortlist in seconds, so you're reading people who fit the brief rather than sorting through everyone. It handles the process end to end, from matching and contacting to booking interviews, and it's free for the people looking for work. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. Tell us what your treasury team needs and we'll start today.
