RBS, Barclays, Santander: Jobs aplenty in London's financial-services sector

"This is the second-highest level of hiring activity since August 2008, illustrating that the jobs market for professionals in financial services continues to follow a steady pace of recovery," said Andrew Evans, managing director of Morgan McKinley's financial Services division. The financial sector makes up around 8 per cent of the economy.

Still, Royal Bank of Scotland Group workers are facing more uncertainty after their boss, chief executive Stephen Hester, issued a warning of further job cuts - without saying where or by how many - to drive down costs. RBS has cut around 22,600 positions worldwide, including 16,600 in the UK, since the start of the financial crisis.

Also the investment banking arm of Barclays is considering axing 400 jobs worldwide, a source close to the bank has said. Barclays Capital had begun a review "which will result in some job losses," affecting back-office roles such as IT, a spokesman for the British bank confirmed. The news came after Barclays announced last week that it had boosted first-half profits by nearly a third thanks to a sharp drop in bad debts, amid signs of revival in the banking sector which suffered in the economic crisis.

But Banco Santander's British branch said it will add 600 new jobs after posting a 10 percent rise in first-half profit. The euro-zone's biggest bank is in exclusive talks to buy 318 UK branches from Royal Bank of Scotland for about 1.8 billion pounds. Santander - which has over 1,300 UK branches after buying Abbey six years ago and striking opportunistic deals during the financial crisis - said its gross mortgage lending rose 14 percent in the first half from a year ago. That was an estimated market share of 19 percent, up from its typical market share of about 14 percent. (September 9th, 2010)

Sources: The Press and Journal, AFP, check4jobs, Wall Street Journal