Online Trading Hiring Report Q4/2026: FX, Crypto & Prop Job Trends
· By Christian Görgen
At a glance
- Hiring is up: open roles rose 26% from Q3 (2,030 → 2,557).
- Crypto leads: Coinbase, Bybit, OKX and Kraken all added 25 or more roles.
- Cyprus is still the top hub, but XM, Exness and eToro posted fewer Cyprus roles than in Q3.
- AI skills in demand: 23% of ads ask candidates for AI skills, up from 19%.
- Pay stays hidden in Europe: Only 7 of 573 EU-based ads show a salary range.
Open Roles by Country
[fyi_chart source="q4-2026:countries_top10" caption="Share of open roles by country, top 10."]
Share of open roles by country, top 10.| Country | Open roles | Share |
|---|
| Cyprus | 218 | 8.5% |
| United States | 190 | 7.4% |
| Singapore | 182 | 7.1% |
| Hong Kong | 162 | 6.3% |
| United Arab Emirates | 135 | 5.3% |
| Malaysia | 118 | 4.6% |
| United Kingdom | 94 | 3.7% |
| Poland | 88 | 3.4% |
| Australia | 75 | 2.9% |
| China | 51 | 2% |
Cyprus is still the single largest hiring location with 218 open roles, but its share fell from 11.1% to 8.5%. The big Cypriot brokers posted fewer roles there than in Q3: XM went from 62 to 47, Exness from 32 to 18 and eToro from 19 to 12. Capital.com's 25 roles in Limassol, most of them also open in Warsaw or Sofia, kept the total close to last quarter.
The United States moved up to second place with 190 roles. Coinbase, OKX and Kraken all added US roles. Malaysia rose to 118, led by Bybit (17 to 40 roles on its own careers site) and Deriv.
Open Roles by Department
[fyi_chart source="q4-2026:departments" caption="Share of open roles by department."]
Share of open roles by department.| Department | Open roles | Share |
|---|
| IT | 595 | 23.3% |
| Risk & Compliance | 297 | 11.6% |
| Partnerships & Business Development | 262 | 10.2% |
| Product | 244 | 9.5% |
| Operations | 196 | 7.7% |
| Support | 163 | 6.4% |
| Marketing | 162 | 6.3% |
| Data | 159 | 6.2% |
| Finance | 154 | 6% |
| Sales | 118 | 4.6% |
| HR | 109 | 4.3% |
| Management | 49 | 1.9% |
| Legal | 49 | 1.9% |
IT is again the largest function, at 23.3% of open roles, or close to one in four. Risk and compliance comes second at 11.6%, ahead of partnerships and business development and product.
Compared with Q3 on the same firms, IT and risk and compliance gained the most share, while marketing, sales and product each gave up just over one percentage point. Hiring has tilted towards building and securing the platform rather than selling it.
Most Open Roles by Job Title
[fyi_chart_tabs source="q4-2026:job_titles_by_segment" tabs="all,broker,prop,crypto" tabLabels="All,CFD brokers,Prop firms,Crypto exchanges" series="count" seriesLabels="Open roles" colors="#3d7b77" horizontal="true" caption="Top job titles, overall and by segment."]
Top job titles, overall and by segment.| Job title | Open roles | Share |
|---|
| Software Engineer | 196 | 7.7% |
| Marketing Manager | 147 | 5.7% |
| Business Development Manager | 143 | 5.6% |
| Product Manager | 143 | 5.6% |
| Compliance Officer | 117 | 4.6% |
| Operations Manager | 112 | 4.4% |
| Customer Support | 102 | 4% |
| Finance Manager | 80 | 3.1% |
| Backend Developer | 79 | 3.1% |
| Risk Manager | 74 | 2.9% |
| Relationship Manager | 69 | 2.7% |
| Security Engineer | 59 | 2.3% |
| Partner Relationship Manager | 59 | 2.3% |
| Mobile Developer | 48 | 1.9% |
| QA Engineer | 47 | 1.8% |
| Legal Counsel | 47 | 1.8% |
| Recruiter | 45 | 1.8% |
| DevOps Engineer | 43 | 1.7% |
| Accountant | 43 | 1.7% |
| Frontend Developer | 41 | 1.6% |
Software Engineer is the most common job title this quarter with 196 roles, followed by Marketing Manager, Business Development Manager and Product Manager at around 145 each. Titles are grouped into families, so "Marketing Manager" covers the wider marketing team, from SEO to brand.
The split by segment is clear. Crypto exchanges hire mostly engineers and product managers. CFD brokers hire customer support first, then engineers and business developers. Business development is still the main way brokers test a new market before opening an office there, and it often includes finding influencers and affiliates who can build local trust.
Top Companies Currently Hiring
[fyi_chart_tabs source="q4-2026:companies_top_by_segment" tabs="crypto,broker,prop" tabLabels="Crypto exchanges,CFD brokers,Prop firms" series="q4" seriesLabels="Open roles" colors="#3d7b77" horizontal="true" caption="Open roles at the most active firms."]
Open roles at the most active firms.| Company | Open roles | Share |
|---|
| OKX | 324 | 12.7% |
| Coinbase | 214 | 8.4% |
| Bybit | 149 | 5.8% |
| JustMarkets | 122 | 4.8% |
| XM | 84 | 3.3% |
| Kraken | 77 | 3% |
| Trading 212 | 70 | 2.7% |
| Binance | 60 | 2.3% |
| Crypto.com | 60 | 2.3% |
| Bitget | 59 | 2.3% |
| Freedom24 | 58 | 2.3% |
| BTSE | 57 | 2.2% |
| CoinW | 56 | 2.2% |
| Capital.com | 55 | 2.2% |
| Interactive Brokers | 50 | 2% |
| Saxo Bank | 49 | 1.9% |
| CFI | 48 | 1.9% |
| Swissquote | 44 | 1.7% |
| MEXC | 43 | 1.7% |
| Tickmill | 41 | 1.6% |
OKX is again the most active recruiter with 324 open roles, up from 290. Coinbase is second with 214, up from 132, and Bybit third with 149.
Among CFD brokers, JustMarkets leads with 122 roles and Trading 212 doubled to 70. XM, Vantage and MultiBank list fewer roles than in Q3. Prop firms remain small employers: FTMO lists 24 roles and Topstep 18. Eight prop firms that had open roles in Q3 had none this quarter, most of them firms that had listed only one or two.
Top Language Requirements in Job Postings
[fyi_chart source="q4-2026:languages_top5" caption="Most requested languages, excluding English."]
Most requested languages, excluding English.| Language | Open roles | Share |
|---|
| Chinese | 274 | 10.7% |
| Russian | 61 | 2.4% |
| Spanish | 56 | 2.2% |
| French | 53 | 2.1% |
| German | 50 | 2% |
| Arabic | 40 | 1.6% |
| Portuguese | 37 | 1.4% |
| Korean | 23 | 0.9% |
| Ukrainian | 22 | 0.9% |
| Czech | 17 | 0.7% |
English is the baseline, so the chart shows the additional languages companies ask for. Chinese leads again with 274 ads, about one in ten, driven by crypto exchanges.
Russian, Spanish, French and German follow, each in about 2% of ads, with Arabic and Portuguese close behind. The list maps the client markets these firms are building, from Latin America to the Gulf.
Work Setup in Online Trading Jobs
[fyi_chart source="q4-2026:work_setup" caption="Working arrangement stated in the ad."]
Working arrangement stated in the ad.| Work setup | Open roles | Share |
|---|
| Not specified | 1,477 | 57.8% |
| Hybrid | 457 | 17.9% |
| Remote | 462 | 18.1% |
| On-site | 161 | 6.3% |
Remote and hybrid roles are now level, at 18.1% and 17.9% of ads. Fully on-site roles are the smallest stated category, but most ads (57.8%) say nothing, which usually means an office job.
On the same firms, hybrid rose from 13.1% to 16.8% of ads, while fully remote slipped from 19.6% to 18.8%. Companies are moving people back towards the office, but mostly part of the week rather than full time.
Experience Level Distribution
[fyi_progress_bars subtitle="Dataset: 2,557 open roles" caption="Seniority requested, share of open roles." items="Entry level (0–1 years)|2.5;Junior (1–2 years)|7.7;Mid-level (2–6 years)|44.7;Senior (6–9 years)|20.1;Lead / Principal (10+ years)|3.0;Not mentioned|22.1"]
Seniority requested, share of open roles.| Experience level | Share of roles |
|---|
| Entry level (0–1 years) | 2.5% |
| Junior (1–2 years) | 7.7% |
| Mid-level (2–6 years) | 44.7% |
| Senior (6–9 years) | 20.1% |
| Lead / Principal (10+ years) | 3% |
| Not mentioned | 22.1% |
Most roles call for prior experience. Mid-level and senior positions together make up 65% of postings.
Entry-level and junior roles combined account for 10.2%, about one in ten ads. That is still a thin slice, but it is larger than in Q3.
AI Adoption and Junior Roles
23% of job ads now ask candidates for AI skills, up from 19% in Q3. That counts only ads that list AI as a requirement, such as experience with AI coding tools, LLMs or AI-powered design and video tools. Ads that only mention a company's own AI products, or carry a note that AI may be used in the hiring process, are left out.
Crypto exchanges ask for AI skills most often, in 27% of ads. Prop firms caught up quickly, from 15% to 25%, and CFD brokers rose from 13% to 18%. The asks run from engineers expected to work with tools like Claude Code or Copilot to designers and marketers working with AI image and video tools.
[fyi_progress_bars subtitle="Dataset: 2,557 open roles" caption="Job ads asking for AI skills, by segment." items="Crypto exchanges|27;Prop firms|25;All companies|23;CFD brokers|18"]
Job ads asking for AI skills, by segment.| Segment | Ads asking for AI skills |
|---|
| Crypto exchanges | 27% |
| Prop firms | 25% |
| All companies | 23% |
| CFD brokers | 18% |
So far there is no sign that AI is squeezing out junior hiring. On the same firms, entry-level and junior roles rose from 7.8% to 10.3% of ads, in the same quarter that demand for AI skills grew. Crypto exchanges drove most of it: they list 108 junior and entry-level roles, against 44 in Q3, with Coinbase alone posting 35. This is still worth watching over the next few quarters.
Most Mentioned Employee Benefits
[fyi_chart source="q4-2026:benefits_top5" caption="Most mentioned benefits."]
Most mentioned benefits.| Benefit | Open roles | Share |
|---|
| Medical insurance | 724 | 28.3% |
| Wellness / gym | 633 | 24.8% |
| Bonus | 587 | 23% |
| Learning budget | 537 | 21% |
| Paid time off | 502 | 19.6% |
| Competitive salary | 499 | 19.5% |
The benefits on offer are standard. Medical insurance is mentioned most often, in just over a quarter of ads, followed by wellness or gym perks, bonuses and a learning budget. Paid time off and a "competitive salary" each appear in about one ad in five.
The packages are solid but rarely distinctive. Few ads use benefits to stand out from competitors.
EU Pay Transparency: The Rules Are Live, the Ads Have Not Caught Up
[fyi_chart_multi source="q4-2026:salary_disclosure" series="disclosed,no_range" labels="Shows a salary range,No salary range" colors="#3d7b77,#dfe6ea" type="bar" horizontal="true" stacked="true" yFormat="percent" legend="top" caption="Ads showing a salary range, same firms, Q3 vs Q4."]
About one ad in ten now shows a salary range, 11.1% at the same firms against 9.5% in Q3. Most of it comes from US firms and US-based roles, where several states require a pay range. Coinbase alone accounts for 188 of the 265 ads with a range, and 48% of ads for roles located in the US include one.
Europe is a different picture. Only 7 of 573 ads for EU-based roles show a range (1.2%), down from 8 of 483 in Q3, even though the EU pay transparency directive was due in national law by June 2026. Enforcement and national rules are still catching up, so this is the figure to watch.
Quarter over Quarter: How Hiring Shifted from Q3 to Q4
This compares Q4/2026 against Q3. Hiring picked up and crypto exchanges led the growth.
[fyi_chart_multi source="q4-2026:quarters" series="jobs" labels="Open roles" colors="#3d7b77" type="bar" title="Open roles per quarter, 2026" caption="Q1 to Q3 as published at the time. Sources were added each quarter, so the earlier totals are not strictly like for like."]
[fyi_chart_multi source="q4-2026:quarters_by_segment" series="crypto,broker,prop" labels="Crypto exchanges,CFD brokers,Prop firms" colors="#3d7b77,#26dbc9,#98e1bd" type="bar" stacked="true" legend="top" title="Hiring up 26.0% from Q3 to Q4" caption="Open roles by segment, Q2 to Q4. Q1 was not split by segment."]
| Segment | Q3/2026 | Q4/2026 | Change | Change % |
|---|
| Crypto exchanges | 950 | 1,308 | +358 | +37.7% |
| CFD brokers | 1,001 | 1,182 | +181 | +18.1% |
| Prop firms | 79 | 67 | -12 | -15.2% |
| All segments | 2,030 | 2,557 | +527 | +26.0% |
Open roles rose from 2,030 to 2,557, an increase of about 26%. Crypto exchanges grew by 38% and CFD brokers by 18%, while prop firms fell from 79 to 67 roles.
[fyi_chart_diverging source="q4-2026:dept_change" value="change" title="Department share change, Q3 → Q4 (percentage points)" caption="Percentage-point change in share, same firms both quarters."]
IT and risk and compliance gained the most share, while marketing, sales and product slipped. Shares are measured on the firms covered in both quarters, with both quarters classified by the same rules.
Methodology
I collected career pages and LinkedIn listings from the 92 online trading companies covered in Q3, crypto exchanges, CFD brokers and prop trading firms. 77 of them had open roles, 2,557 in total, as of 1 October 2026.
Custom scrapers pulled the listings. Each ad was then tagged with fixed keyword rules for department, seniority, languages, benefits, pay ranges and AI mentions. The same rules were re-run on the Q3 ads, so every change figure compares like with like. Some Q3 figures therefore differ from the Q3 report, which used AI models for the tagging; the largest gap, salary disclosure, is explained in the pay section.
Hiring moves fast and some firms block scrapers, so treat this as a directional read, not an exact headcount.
How this report was made
Methodology FAQ
What does this hiring report cover?
It looks at 2,557 open jobs at 77 online trading companies, crypto exchanges, CFD brokers and prop trading firms, as they stood on 1 October 2026. It is a single snapshot in time, not a running tally.
Where does the data come from?
Only public job ads: each company’s own careers page and its LinkedIn listings. No private or paid data is used, so anyone could see the same postings.
How were the jobs collected?
Custom scrapers pulled every open listing from the 92 companies covered in Q3 on one day. Collecting everything on the same date keeps the comparison fair, but it also means a role posted the next day is not counted.
How is each job sorted into a category?
Fixed keyword rules tag every ad: the department mostly from the job title, and the seniority, languages, benefits, pay ranges and AI mentions from the ad text. The same rules were re-run on the Q3 ads so the two quarters compare like with like. With this many ads a few will always be misfiled.
What counts as a job ad "asking for AI skills"?
An ad counts when AI, machine learning, LLMs or AI tools appear among the skills or experience it asks of the candidate. Mentions of the company's own AI products, and notes that AI may be used in the hiring process, do not count.
How are the experience levels decided?
From the years of experience each ad asks for: entry (0–1), junior (1–2), mid-level (2–6) and senior (6+). Lead or principal is used for leadership titles asking for 10 or more years. When an ad gives no figure, the level in the title (junior, senior and so on) is used, and otherwise it is marked "not mentioned".
How is "share of open roles" worked out?
Each percentage is that group’s slice of the total, all 2,557 roles for the global charts. Figures are rounded, so they may not add up to exactly 100%.
How do you compare one quarter to the next?
The same companies are scraped again and both quarters are classified with the same rules. Changes in shares are measured on the firms covered in both quarters, and where a source changed, such as a deeper read of LinkedIn, the report says so rather than counting it as hiring.
What are the limits of this data?
It only sees public ads on a single day. Roles filled quietly, hired through agencies, or never posted online will not appear, and ad wording is not always precise. Treat it as a directional read of where the industry is hiring, not an exact headcount.
Who makes the report, and can I get the underlying data?
FYI compiles it each quarter as part of its online-trading market intelligence. We are happy to share the full dataset and charts on request, just get in touch.
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