Quantitative Researcher

Quantitative researchers build the maths and computer models that hedge funds and trading firms use to decide what to buy and sell. There is no government count of this job; it is a small, elite field, often entered with a PhD.

Much of the work is the kind of desk work AI is good at: writing code, cleaning data, testing ideas against past prices. A 2025 Microsoft Research study of how much of each job's tasks AI chatbots can help with ranks the closest job, data scientist, 19th of 785; Microsoft sells AI. Independent reporting shows it is already happening inside firms. In July 2025 Man Group, the world's largest listed hedge fund, described an AI system it built that comes up with trading ideas, writes the code and tests them against past prices, and that several dozen of its signals had been approved for live trading. A senior portfolio manager at its quant arm said "I wouldn't call it autopilot": the firm keeps many human checkpoints on the work.

The evidence on replacement is weaker. An August 2026 academic review of AI "agent" trading systems, not yet peer reviewed, found they are mostly used to find trading signals, and that strong forecasting ability does not reliably turn into profits in live markets. Hiring still looks strong: Selby Jennings, a recruiter that places quants (and so has an interest in a busy market), described the European quant market going into 2026 as one of its most competitive hiring markets yet, with quants who can apply machine learning increasingly valuable.

We rate this 3 (Moderate), one step below data scientists (4), even though the two jobs are about equally exposed to AI. The difference is what we can see at the way in. Job ads for data and analytics work are further below their pre-pandemic level than those for any other job group the job site Indeed tracks. For quants, the only hiring evidence we found (a European recruiter) describes strong demand, and we found nothing like the drop in data job ads. Quant research is also judged on whether a strategy makes money in live markets, which AI does not yet reliably do on its own, so AI does meaningful parts of the job (a 3) rather than most of it (a 4). Expect a more demanding entry level all the same: the junior work of coding and testing ideas is exactly what Man Group's system does. This is a fast-moving area and the uncertainty is wide.

What would change the score: funds shrinking research teams or taking fewer junior quants because AI agents now find and test strategies, or AI systems beating human-run strategies in live trading, would push it to 4.