One in five Financial Sector Employees in Denmark has an English job Title

​Head of Cards or the Danish version, 'Kortansvarlig'? Every one in five financial sector employees in Denmark has an English job title, a survey conducted by Finansforbundet of its members has revealed. Most frequently used of the English job titles is 'Private Banker', with the English titles 'Controller' and 'Product Owner' also becoming more common, according to the survey. And more English job titles are set to follow, believes Nikolaj Knudtzon from recruitment firm Mercuri Urval:

"The huge changes affecting the sector at the moment, with all the innovation, digitalisation, agility and disruption that is creating, did of course originate in the English-speaking world. You could easily find Danish words for these new English terms, but you don't because being 'with the times' is more attractive. If you don't write Scrum Master and Agile Coach, you are not exactly convincing people that you are keeping up. We need to get used to the idea of more English job titles in Denmark, in other words," says Nikolaj Knudtzon, an international management consultant from Mercuri Urval.

Around 17,000 of Finansforbundet's members took part in the aforementioned survey, citing more than 2,700 different titles in total. Make reservations for spelling mistakes and spelling variations asides, there were still a number of recurrent titles among these 2,700. Although classic Danish job titles such as 'direktør' (director), leder (manager), afdelingschef (head of department), sekretær (secretary), it-udvikler (IT developer), bogholder (bookkeeper) and stabsmedarbejder (staff member), and others besides, continue to be used, fewer of them are being used as specialisation increases.

More Product Owners

According to the survey, Product Owner and Scrum Master are two job titles that are becoming more common. IT is one of the areas associated with widespread use of English job titles, where the title often reflects the employee's degree of specialisation. Examples here include more generic titles such as IT Developer and Software Developer, as well as longer and more function-based titles such as Lead IT Operational Performance Specialist and Calypso Configuration Manager.

Another trend we are seeing is more employees working within compliance and anti-money laundering, known as AML in common parlance. The terms compliance and AML are included in a wealth of different titles – including in a string in one of the longest titles in the survey, Senior AML & Sanctions Processing Specialist.

Rather curiously, there are even a few job titles whereby the job holder inadvertently takes on full responsibility for a whole area, calling themselves the 'hvidvaskansvarlig' – i.e. the person responsible for money laundering. There are also English job titles that require you to have knowledge of the financial sector, such as Incident Driver, Traffic Manager, Hotliner and Welcoming Specialist.

Fewer 'all-round' advisors

Unsurprisingly, the most common title in the member survey is rådgiver i.e. the Danish word for 'advisor', a job title that has become much more complex and specialised. In these Danish job titles, you can be a private advisor, customer advisor or a business advisor, or an investment advisor, a wealth advisor, a credit advisor, a company advisor and so on.

Certain examples stand out more than others, such as forvaltningsrådgiver (management advisor (consultant)) and retsforfølgningsrådgiver (legal prosecution advisor). The increased amount of specialisation is also reflected in real estate. As such, there are now more titles in use in this area in Danish, such as real estate advisor, real estate supporter, real estate consultant, real estate specialist, real estate employee and real estate manager.