Fintech sits at the point where financial services and cyber security meet, and both are under pressure. The UK cyber security workforce stands at roughly 143,000 people, with growth moderately accelerating from 2% in 2022 to 5% in 2024 Cyber security skills in the UK labour market 2025, GOV.UK. That growth is real, but it still trails the demand for people who can own a live incident.
Demand for financial services talent skews senior. Recruitment in the sector was generally for Regulatory Qualification Framework (RQF) 6+ roles, rather than RQF 3 to 5 GOV.UK Temporary Shortage List: Stage 2 report. For incident response that tracks, because the person who owns an outage needs judgement, regulatory awareness and the authority to make calls under pressure.
Ownership is a named person, not a committee. In practice it falls to a security lead, a head of engineering or a dedicated incident commander who is accountable from the first alert to the final post-mortem. Around them sit on-call engineers, a security operations analyst and a communications lead who manages regulators and customers.
The hard part is finding these people. Cyber hiring stays tight: 70% of cyber firms reported at least one hard-to-fill vacancy AI Labour Market Survey 2025, GOV.UK. When the roles that own incident response are the ones you cannot fill, response times slip and risk climbs.
Start by writing down who owns what before you post a role. A clear accountability map tells you exactly which gap you are filling, and it helps candidates see where they fit. Then test for judgement, not just certificates. Ask how someone handled a real outage, who they escalated to and what they changed afterwards.
Move quickly, because the strongest people rarely stay on the market long. With 70% of cyber firms reporting at least one hard-to-fill vacancy AI Labour Market Survey 2025, GOV.UK, a slow process loses you the very people who can own a crisis. Keep interviews tight, give feedback fast and be clear about the on-call expectations from the first conversation.
We search 15 million candidates to find the security and engineering people who can own incident response, and we manage the process end to end: sourcing, screening, shortlisting and booking interviews. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost, through Reed.ai. Tell us who you need and we'll start today.
