Online Trading Hiring Report Q2/2026– Job Trends in FX, Crypto & Prop Trading

As part of my ongoing monitoring of the online trading space, I analyse open roles at leading brands, as they often reveal priorities and growth strategies.

One thing that caught my attention is that Kraken is currently hiring aggressively in Cyprus. As a result, I’ve started paying closer attention to the crypto space again. For this edition, crypto exchanges are included — and they are clearly dominating, with by far the highest number of open positions.

FX broker hiring remains broadly in line with Q1 levels, while prop firm growth seems to have slowed slightly for now. That said, it’s worth keeping in mind that most prop firms already operate with very lean teams and were never hiring at scale to begin with.

In this report, you’ll find a top-level overview of hiring across the online trading space, along with key trends that highlight where the industry is heading.

Crypto Exchange Kraken is currently ramping up hiring in Cyprus

With crypto exchanges now included in this report, the country ranking has shifted quite a bit. Singapore and Hong Kong are clearly stepping onto the stage.

If Kraken wasn’t hiring so aggressively in Cyprus, Singapore would have overtaken it as the main online trading hub.

The UAE appears slightly behind some of the other hubs right now, but that’s largely a distortion driven by the inclusion of crypto exchanges. Overall, it remains on similar levels to the Q1 report.

So far, the current crisis doesn’t seem to have had a noticeable impact on hiring in the GCC. That said, it’s still early days. It’s unclear whether candidates are currently as eager to relocate to the UAE.

In the bigger picture, the UAE remains a key hub, and relocation should pick up again once the situation with Iran stabilises.

Poland and Bulgaria are also becoming increasingly important, mainly as operational hubs for European broker activities.

When looking at open roles by department, IT is still clearly dominating. Many of these roles are highly specialised. If you are comfortable with tools like Python, SQL, AWS, Docker, Kubernetes or Java and you can communicate well, you are in a very strong position right now. The demand is there.

Marketing and partnerships roles show a similar pattern, with a strong focus on business development. It is less about strategy and more about results and execution. If you understand how traders think, how to engage them, and bring hands on experience in areas like performance marketing, social, CRM, marketing automation or analytics, your chances are good, especially if you can combine several of these skills.

Localised roles are also becoming more important. Companies are hiring for specific markets, which means language skills are often required rather than optional.

Risk and compliance is an evergreen and demand seems to be increasing again, driven by more complex regulatory frameworks across different regions.

Looking at the top 10 companies hiring, 4 crypto exchanges made it into the list.

On the CFD broker side, the total number of open roles hasn’t changed dramatically. It’s maybe down around 10 – 20%, but nothing major. Turnover in online trading is naturally quite high, so once one role gets filled, another one often opens up.

What also stands out is that some roles stay open for months. That can point to very specific requirements or simply how hard it is to find the right talent.

At the same time, it feels like hiring processes are not always as efficient as they could be. There is often a lot of noise in the system, with multiple stakeholders involved and a high volume of outreach that doesn’t always lead to the right matches.

As a result, even when talent might be available, connecting the right people with the right roles can take longer than expected or is not happening at all.

With crypto exchanges included, Mandarin and Chinese play a much bigger role in overall language requirements.

French is mainly linked to roles targeting African markets.

Spanish, on the other hand, is primarily required for LATAM-focused positions, where brokers and exchanges continue to expand and localise their offerings.

A large share of roles don’t specify the work setup upfront. In most cases, that likely means on-site by default or that flexibility depends on how well the candidate negotiates. It’s rarely a fully open setup from the start.

Overall, most companies still expect people to be in the office at least part of the time, especially for core functions. That said, crypto exchanges have clearly increased the number of flexible roles, as they tend to be more open to remote and hybrid setups compared to traditional FX brokers.

Fully remote roles do exist, but they are not the standard.

Besides MetaTrader, there are hardly any trading-specific tools being mentioned.

You would expect to see more references to FIX or REST APIs, liquidity bridges, and similar infrastructure. Instead, the focus is clearly on core IT skills and general engineering capabilities, which seem to be in much higher demand right now.

In the US, it’s quite common to publish salary ranges in job postings, which gives a useful glimpse into the differences between locations.

In Cyprus, this is about to become reality as well. By 7 June 2026, the EU Pay Transparency Directive will be implemented locally, requiring employers to disclose salary ranges in job advertisements.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in practice, especially how Cyprus-based companies approach and implement it.

Salary ranges in job ads are expected to become mandatory in Cyprus soon

When it comes to benefits, you would expect something more differentiated, but overall it’s still very basic. Medical insurance, bonuses, and standard perks dominate most listings.

One noticeable difference is in crypto. Some exchanges offer equity, which is something you rarely see with FX brokers or prop firms.

On the time-off side, the average number of vacation days sits at 21.14, with a maximum of 33 days in some cases.

Methodology

Career pages and LinkedIn job listings were reviewed to identify open roles across 150+ companies in the online trading space, including crypto exchanges, CFD brokers, and prop trading firms. In total, 2,772 job descriptions were scraped on 30/03/2026, of which 2,551 qualified for analysis.

Data collection and structuring were supported by custom Python scripts. Where needed, OpenAI was used to assist with tasks such as keyword extraction, classification, text normalisation, and interpretation. All outputs were reviewed manually. While the dataset has been carefully compiled, it may not be entirely free of errors.

The data represents a snapshot of the market at the beginning of Q2/2026. Hiring activity is dynamic, and roles may have changed since collection. Some companies restrict automated access, which may result in incomplete coverage.

This report is intended to highlight overall hiring trends rather than provide an exact count of open positions.

Need extra hands before you hire?

At FYI, we connect you with contractors who already understand the online trading space — and get the job done.

Start Today