Financial firms in London’s City district are facing a skills crisis like never before, with two job vacancies currently open for every viable candidate, a recruiter warned today.

Robert Walters, a London based agency, said it has 10,560 open vacancies for City jobs but just 6,000 job hunters looking for work on its books.

That’s despite a 48% increase in workers signing up to its platform, a result it says of improving economic conditions in the UK capital.

The firm’s chief executive Chris Hickey said employees hunkered down in recent years and wanted job security, but now they have grown in confidence and are on a look-out for rich job-swapping opportunities.

“Only recently have we started to see the impact of the economic recovery feeding through to candidate confidence, which is great news for talent-seeking City organ¬isations as they set their sights on business growth.

“Candidates have been reticent about moving jobs in the last few years, fearing the ‘last in, first out’ culture that previously dominated in the City.

“However, we expect the market to open up more throughout the year, particularly once bonus season has run its course.”

The latest figures show a big drop in the number of people out of work across the UK.

In the last three months of 2014, the jobless total fell 97,000 while the number of people in work jumped 103,000 to nearly 31 million, which is the highest total on record.

The figures also showed that average wage increases were outstripping inflation, meaning people should be starting to feel better off after a long period of below-inflation wage hikes and wage freezes.