Lest there are still any doubts that regulatory compliance is the place to work this year, the latest survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the CBI spells it out clearly: spending on regulatory compliance is booming.

The survey shows that a balance of 88% of banks expect to increase their spending on regulatory compliance in the next 12 months.

It also shows that a balance of 3% of general insurance firms (ie. not brokers or life insurers) expect to increase their headcount in the next three months.

Elsewhere, the picture remains very, very bleak. A balance of 43% of banks and 94% of securities traders expect to make headcount reductions in the next three months. According to The Times, another 15,000 financial services jobs are likely to go before March.