A Q&A with Rizwaan Ahmed, Managing Partner, on what six months of senior investment banking hiring data is telling us.

Six months into 2026, what's the big picture on investment banking hiring?

The clearest takeaway is that the three major regions are moving in completely different directions right now. The US is pulling back and getting more selective, Europe is seeing share shift away from the largest banks toward boutiques and mid-market firms, and APAC is swinging back into growth mode after a quieter year. That kind of divergence is unusual, and it tells you something about how differently banks are reading the deal environment region by region.

Let's start with the US. What's driving hiring there?

Conviction, but concentrated conviction. Technology is still the number one priority for senior hires, even as AI reshapes which parts of the sector are in demand. Areas like legal tech have cooled off noticeably, while cybersecurity, infrastructure software, and fintech are still attracting strong interest.

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Healthcare is the other standout. Banks are building out ahead of an expected wave of biopharma consolidation, with acquirers racing to replenish late-stage pipelines before they hit loss-of-exclusivity cliffs. Equity capital markets teams are scaling too, positioning for a stronger IPO pipeline in biotech and technology.

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But overall, US hiring is down year on year. Firms are being disciplined about where they deploy headcount rather than expanding broadly.

And Europe? You mentioned share shifting away from the largest banks.

Yes, that's the standout trend. The bulge brackets are losing more senior bankers than they're hiring, while boutiques and mid-market firms are picking up that talent. Technology, country coverage, and financial institutions have been the busiest areas, with a lot of country coverage movement concentrated across France, Germany, and the Benelux region.

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The other thing worth flagging is the secondaries market. It's become a genuine battleground. After one bank built out a dedicated team last year, several others have followed, and we've seen firms acquire their way into the space rather than build organically. That said, it's not been a universal success story. A couple of London secondaries teams were shut down in the same period.

APAC seems to be telling a different story again. Is that the case?

Yes, completely different. It's the pendulum swinging back. Banks that spent last year hiring into corporate banking are now pivoting back toward investment banking, and we're seeing buyside and corporate destinations pull a growing share of senior talent out of the banks altogether. Hiring overall is up sharply year on year, with the busiest areas being country coverage, M&A, and debt capital markets.

Where does AI fit into all of this? How is it actually affecting hiring decisions?

It depends who you speak to. Technology is still very much an in-demand word for some, and a source of caution for others. AI is genuinely shifting how banks think about hiring. Some firms see it as an opportunity, a chance to bring in talent they wouldn't normally be able to attract in a typical market. Others are taking a far more cautious approach, waiting to see how things settle before committing to senior hires in areas AI could reshape. It's created a real split in appetite, and that split is showing up clearly in the data.

If you had to sum up what all of this means for the rest of the year, what would you say?

Where banks choose to place their bets on talent is one of the clearest early signals of where they expect deal activity to pick up. Watch the sectors and regions attracting senior hires today, and you get a read on where volumes are headed tomorrow. We'll be tracking how this shifts as we move into the second half of the year.