Adecade or so ago, financial service companies in need of quantitative whizz kids looked first to PhD programmes. Doctors of maths, engineering, or science subjects would duly be hired and trained up. More recently, however, the growth of masters in finance programmes at academic institutions has given financial employers another and rather attractive recruitment option.

Change happens at reasonably frequent intervals in the financial services sector: new regulations emerge and frighteningly clever people think up ever more complex ways to make money and manage risk. This is not to say that the latest developments in derivatives trading would be beyond today’s average PhD in theoretical physics. It is more that masters in finance graduates receive quantitative training but also a thorough grounding in corporate and financial market principles and practice.