City pay is rising in spite of the widening effects of the credit crunch, according to a specialist recruiter.

Average rates for new joiners in core City jobs such as sales and trading have fallen more than 8 per cent in the past year, but other sectors including insurance and the pensions industry have seen starting salary jumps of more than 10 per cent in the past 12 months.

The data were collected by Joslin Rowe, the recruitment firm. On average, permanent salaries have risen 3.2 per cent, but that covers jumps of almost 14 per cent in the pensions sector and hefty drops in other sectors.

Tara Ricks, director of Joslin Rowe said: “If this is a slowdown, it’s a patchwork slowdown.

“Competition for top financial talent is considerable and the salary rises in a number of sectors speak for themselves.”

In spite of the layoffs by many top banks, Joslin Rowe reported an average of 0.67 candidates for every job that needs to be filled in pensions and insurance, and a ratio of 0.83 in the hard-hit sales and trading sector.

Ms Ricks said: “A higher percentage of target candidates are choosing to sit tight – they’re too worried to move. So even where there are vacancies, there is a shortage of candidates.

“This goes some way to explaining why people who are prepared to move are beginning to receive multiple job offers again.”

“The fact they’re happening at all shows that the market isn’t on its knees.”

City-focused recruiters such as Hays and Michael Page have seen sharp share price slides in recent months after reporting weaker fee income from their UK operations – but they have not yet seen the collapse in hiring that many had predicted.

Hays was down 13.4 per cent for the year at the close of trade on Friday, compared with a drop of 7.7 per cent for the mid-cap index. Michael Page has lost 9.4 per cent this year.

Recruiters have noted that even as the top-tier banks cut back, there are still buoyant pockets of activity among mid-tier banks and sectors such as hedge funds – as well as for the support services, from accounting and tax to information technology, that they rely on.

Joslin Rowe said temporary accounting jobs had seen a 12 per cent jump in hourly rates over the past year, while banking operations and secretarial staff had seen jumps of more than 5 per cent.