Increasingly fragmented liquidity, combined with a move towards multi-asset class and multi-geographic trading strategies is placing greater strain on existing smart order routing (SOR) technology. As a result, financial services firms look likely increase investment, and demand for expertise in this area is set to pick up.

A report from Aite Group suggests that the furore around high frequency trading has also added to the burdens placed upon existing SORs, and predicts that demand will rise above $1bn in 2010. The majority of this will go to brokerage providers, it says.

Smart order routing uses technology to determine which execution venue provides the best price and then directs the trade towards it.

Aite Group surveyed 18 providers and users of SOR technology, including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, UBS, Aleri, Progress Apama, Streambase, FlexTrade and Sungard.

So far, though, the appetite to hire techies with experience of SOR development has yet to take off, say recruiters, but it's expected to in the coming months.

"Conversations with investment banking clients suggest projects are likely to get underway in early 2010," says Becky Grimes, team leader in the investment banking technology division at Project Partners, "There has been some interest in recruiting business analysts and project managers as the first port of call as the implementation begins, and technical staff are likely to follow."

Part of the reason recruitment has been muted thus far, is the fact that the majority of firms will simply be increasing the functionality of their existing system, says Marcus Newman, director and specialist in the electronic, algorithmic and program trading markets at search firm Riversdale Consulting. This is unlikely to need too many extra resources.

One example of this is JPMorgan, which recently announced two major functionality upgrades to its MorganDirect platform.

"If you look at the senior ranks, for instance, an algorithmic product manager will usually also have responsibility for the SOR technology strategy," he says. "However, programmers working in the same team are also being asked to work on SORs as a sub-project, and experience of these systems is becoming increasingly valued."