Top 15 Countries for Quantitative Analytics Professionals

Published on January 16, 2014 by Karthik Vijayapalan

Our Quantitative Services group recently compiled the ratio of quantitative analytics professionals in different countries around the globe. The study includes quantitative analytics professionals that are involved in research, development, and implementation of quantitative models to support investment management, asset pricing and risk management within financial services sector. The top 15 countries are shown in the chart below. Not surprisingly, US and UK top the chart driven by the high number of quants in New York and London. However, it is surprising to see India at number three ahead of Netherlands, Canada and France.

Top 15 Quantitative Analytics Sourcing Destinations

Financial services firms in India have set up quant shops that cater to the growing domestic financial markets. However, the majority of India’s growth in quantitative analytics reflects the increase in offshoring from US, Europe and other Asian markets. Over the past decade, India has witnessed a steady growth of quantitative analytics establishments – first through captives of global financial services firms and then through the use of third-party knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) firms. The complexity of work offshored has also increased during the same time.

Other emerging offshoring locations in this space include China (rank 13), Poland (rank 20), Philippines (rank 26) and Indonesia (rank 28). However, these locations are still not as mature as India and could face scalability issues for large operations.

Whether to use a KPO provider or build one’s own team in a captive unit or use a combination of both is the question business managers need to answer. Factors such as domain and technology competence, cost competitiveness, flexible staffing, transition expertise, analyst training program, knowledge management, governance mechanism, and compliance and information security infrastructure play an important role in the decision making. There is no one size fits all. There are subtle differences in how firms are organized. Hence, white-boarding sessions and detailed scoping exercise with the business stakeholders is an important step towards crafting the best solution for each requirement.

---

---