Investment banks including Nomura, Citigroup and Bank of America have started hiring dealmakers and traders in Europe in a sign that recruitment is picking up after a two-year cull in which thousands of bankers lost their jobs.

Recruiters say they are at their busiest since 2010 as banks add new staff in revenue-generating positions from mergers and acquisitions advice to equities trading.

In recent years, virtually all new banking jobs have been in back-office roles such as IT, risk and compliance.

“It’s fair to say that there’s been a pent-up desire to hire and all of the recent positive data are making it much easier for them to pull the trigger,” said Joseph Leung, founder of Aubreck Leung, the executive search group.

It comes as the rate of job losses in the global investment banking sector has fallen to its slowest pace in two years.

But a number of banks are now beginning to expand in areas where they are making good returns, said Jon Terry, a partner at PwC. “We are not talking about thousands of staff but we are definitely seeing green shoots.”

Several banks have scrapped the traditional summer hiring freeze to ensure that they get the best talent, despite having to buy bankers out of this year’s bonus round.

Japanese bank Nomura reduced staff last year. In the past few months, it has added a string of bankers at its US investment banking team and is now looking to make senior hires in Europe, people close to the situation said.

Citigroup is also in the middle of a recruitment drive to add senior bankers to its European investment banking business, its commodities unit, and its structured products and derivatives division.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is seeking to capitalise on Europe’s nascent economic recovery as well by hiring bankers in M&A, financial institutions advisory, debt capital markets, equities and fixed-income trading. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2013