Banking & Finance

Banking and finance is a huge industry, covering everything from every-day retail banking to complex wealth management for ‘high net worth individuals’. If you’re a quick learner with a head for numbers and work well under pressure, this could be the industry for you. 

Jobs in banking 

Retail banking is the area of finance that most people and businesses experience, either inside their local high street branches and building societies, or over the phone and via the internet. This huge area of banking boasts a broad range of career options, ranging from bank tellers handling cash in branch, to customer service representatives, to bank managers and financial advisors.

Investment banking is another part of this industry, including capital markets services - underwriting debt, assisting with company deals, such as mergers and acquisitions – when two organisations join forces to become a new business – and restructuring debt: a process that allows companies with cash flow problems reduce and renegotiate debts, allowing it to continue operations.

Another area in the industry is private banking, providing banking services to ‘high-net-worth individuals’ – people with assets worth £20 million or more. These services include wealth management (helping them make good investments, for example) and tax planning. Brokerage services are another part of the sector, managing the buying and selling of financial securities (stocks and debt) between a buyer and a seller.

Jobs in finance

Debt resolution also is a consumer service people in this industry provide, used by individuals with too much debt to pay in full, but do not want to file bankruptcy and wish to pay off the debt eventually.

Those going into this industry could also work in private equity – working with capital that is not made available on the public stock exchange. Private equity involves investing directly into private companies, or conducting buyouts of public companies resulting in them becoming private (ie. not on the stock exchange).

Venture capital is a type of private equity capital typically provided by professional, outside investors to new, high-growth-potential companies in the interest of taking the company to an IPO or trade sale of the business.

Banking & finance apprenticeships

School leavers could access this industry via apprenticeships. Those on Intermediate Apprenticeships (Level 2) could train in roles like accounts assistant, accounts clerk, cashier and credit control clerk.

Those on Advanced Apprenticeships (Level 3) could train in roles like trainee accounting technician and assistant accountant, going onto Higher Apprenticeships in roles like accounts manager and accounts technician.

School leavers with an impressive set of A-levels could even do a Degree Apprenticeship in business, finance and law, or finance and accountancy.

There are even sponsored degrees and school leaver programmes available.

School leavers could also look at the banking and finance courses on offer at further education college and university. 

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