Traineeship in the Market-based Finance Division

This traineeship is in the Market-based Finance Division within the Directorate General Macroprudential Policy and Financial Stability.

General information

Type of contract Traineeship

Who can apply? EU nationals eligible for our traineeship programme

Grant The trainee grant is €1,170 per month plus an accommodation allowance

Closing date 07.09.2026

Your team

You will be part of the Market-based Finance Division in the Directorate General Macroprudential Policy and Financial Stability. The Directorate General has more than 100 members of staff providing analysis and policy advice on issues relating to financial stability, non-bank financial intermediation, financial regulation and macroprudential policy.

The Market-based Finance Division assesses and mitigates the systemic risks arising from the activities and behaviour of non-bank financial intermediaries. It also monitors financial stability risks in financial markets, coordinates the Directorate General’s market intelligence activities and improves understanding of how market-based finance interacts with monetary policy.

In your role as a trainee, you will be part of a team of approximately 20 members of staff responsible for policy-relevant analysis, model and data-infrastructure development and the coordination of the ECB’s views on the issues mentioned above.

Your role

As a trainee, you will:

• participate actively in the general work of the Division by contributing to analyses for inclusion in regular internal reports and external publications such as the ECB’s Financial Stability Review, contributing through data processing, research assistance and programming to analytical projects focused on issues currently of interest to the Directorate General, and helping to prepare presentations and notes for stakeholders;
• maintain, update and further develop data infrastructures used for identifying systemic risk and analysing developments in the non-bank financial sector and financial markets;
• develop tools for efficient data processing, data analysis and data visualisation, while helping ensure users can access complex datasets.

The traineeship offers excellent opportunities to familiarise yourself with key aspects of financial stability in the euro area and to develop your technical skills by participating in a variety of regularly performed tasks and projects. You will be able to develop your potential and quickly make a real difference to the work of the Division.

As a trainee, you will have the opportunity to work in a team alongside committed and highly qualified colleagues and leaders in the field of financial stability and macroprudential policy.

You will be able to attend a wide range of seminars and will have access to the ECB’s library as well as its computing, programming and statistical resources. You will have the opportunity to network and engage with other employees, grow personally and expand your business knowledge. You will be part of a multicultural team that strives for continuous innovation to make a positive impact on the lives of European citizens.

Qualifications, experience and skills

Essential:

• a bachelor’s degree or higher in finance, economics, statistics, mathematics, engineering, business administration, physics, computer science or a related discipline;
• a good understanding of and practical experience working with one or more programming languages and econometric software packages (e.g. R, Stata, MATLAB, Python or SQL);
• experience in preparing, handling and analysing datasets based on various data sources;
• a good knowledge of the MS Office package, in particular Excel and PowerPoint;
• an advanced (C1) command of English and an intermediate (B1) command of at least one other official language of the EU, according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

Desired:

• a master’s degree, or studies towards a master’s degree that are close to completion, in finance, economics, statistics, mathematics, engineering, business administration, physics, computer science or a related discipline;
• initial experience using AI tools in research, analysis or data processing to improve efficiency and automate workflows;
• knowledge of financial markets and financial sector analysis;
• experience in using financial and economic databases (e.g. the ECB Statistical Data Portal, Bloomberg, LSEG Workspace, EPFR, Lipper, PitchBook or other commercial or public data sources).

You are curious and eager to learn, and want to further develop your ability to analyse complex information. You are keen to collaborate with others, pursue team goals and learn from other people’s diverse perspectives. You strive to know and anticipate stakeholder needs, and will signal any need for change and propose alternative solutions.

You are motivated to contribute to the ECB’s mission, to serve the citizens of the EU as a member of a public institution and to work with colleagues from all over Europe. You are keen to be part of the team and to use your skills and competencies to achieve the aims of this position.

Further information

Initial traineeship of between three and six months, with a possible extension to up to 12 months in total. The earliest starting date will be December 2026, and additional starting dates will be available throughout 2027.