While UK unemployment hit 2.46 million last week, and unions objected to Lloyds Banking Group’s plans to let another 5,000 staff go, among London’s asset managers business is more buoyant, according to heads of human resource departments and recruiters.

Sentiment began to shift in the summer, they reported, following a miserable first half of 2009. Alex Brown, managing director of fund management search boutique Meredith Brown Associates, said: "We are doing twice the business we were doing three months ago."