You need engineers. The market is thin, the timeline is tight, and your grad programme doesn't move fast enough. Sound familiar?
THE CHALLENGE
This global investment bank was operating under a dual pressure that will be familiar to most technology leaders right now. On one side: a mandate to reduce costs and headcount globally. On the other: growing demand from engineering teams across Markets Technology and Operations for skilled, deployable engineers in specialist areas including Fixed Income, Rates, and Commodities.
Their graduate programme was delivering technically sound candidates, but lacked the commercial maturity, diversity of background, and flexibility of timing that the business needed. Seasonal intakes didn't align with project demand. And the diversity numbers weren't moving.
They needed a fundamentally different approach one that could solve immediate resourcing gaps while building something more sustainable for the long term.
THE SOLUTION
We delivered two parallel workstreams. The first addressed internal mobility: working with HR and engineering leads to identify high-potential employees in non-technical roles who had the aptitude and drive to retrain as Software Engineers. We delivered a fully immersive 12-week programme, enabling career transitions within the bank protecting headcount, reducing recruitment cost, and producing engineers who already understood the business.
The second established an ongoing external pipeline: deploying job-ready tech consultants directly into London-based engineering teams, with full support from our consultancy management function throughout placement and a clear pathway to permanent conversion.
Diversity wasn't a metric we chased it's built into how we source. Through our CSR partnerships with The Prince's Trust, Resurgo, and the National Autistic Society, we actively recruit from communities that traditional tech hiring never reaches.
IMPACT
Tech consultants were retained throughout a period of global headcount reduction a direct reflection of the value they delivered relative to cost. The bank's reputation as a diversity-in-technology employer has been measurably strengthened through this partnership.