Over the past 6 months, tokenisation has shifted from a talking point in strategy meetings to the key reason firms are hiring. Mandates are more senior, more specific, and more urgent than ever before.

Organisations that were simply monitoring the space a few months ago are now building entire teams around it.

Is it too soon? We don’t think so. When it comes to tokenisation, the UK is further along than most people realise.

Tokenisation Moves into Government Markets

A series of regulatory updates and legislative developments make it clear that tokenisation is moving from theory to operational market infrastructure.

UK fintech and compliance hiring was up 26% in 2025, and from what we’re seeing on the ground, digital assets and tokenisation have a major part to play in the numbers. 

  •  HM Treasury is preparing to issue DIGIT, a digitally native blockchain-settled gilt, operated within the Bank of England and the FCA's Digital Securities Sandbox. 

  • HSBC Orion won the competitive tender as platform provider. This is a sovereign bond being built for on-chain settlement, OTC smart contract trading, and DLT interoperability. When a G7 government goes this far, it’s a policy commitment, not a pilot.

  • The FCA authorised the UK's first tokenised UCITS under its Blueprint model in January 2025, then followed in October with CP25/28, a consultation proposing direct-to-fund dealing on-chain where investors hold tokenised fund units directly in digital wallets.

  • The Property (Digital Assets, etc.) The Act received Royal Assent on 2 December 2025, creating a new category of personal property in English law for digital assets and resolving an ownership question that had been blocking clean deal structuring for years. 

  • CARF, the OECD's crypto reporting framework, also came into force on 1 January 2026, bringing real compliance obligations for any firm handling tokenised assets.

In-Demand Roles: Where Hiring Urgency is Concentrating

This momentum is moving into the hiring process as firms enter the implementation phase. Across Broadgate’s client base, demand is concentrating around a small number of specialist roles that sit at the intersection of capital markets, regulation, and digital asset infrastructure.

MLROs with Tokenisation or Digital Asset Experience

The most consistent gap across the firms we service. As more organisations enter the FCA's regulatory perimeter, demand for MLROs who understand on-chain financial crime risks is well ahead of supply.

Capital Markets Lawyers

Top legal talent is needed to bring structured finance expertise to token classification, tokenised instrument documentation, and an FSMA framework that is still evolving.

Compliance officers

Firms are searching for candidates who operate across both the traditional FCA regime and a tokenised environment: on-chain AML, smart contract workflows, and real-time KYC at the point of transfer.

Risk professionals

Risk specialists who can assess exposures that don't fit legacy frameworks are in demand. This remit typically includes settlement risk in tokenised collateral, liquidity signalling on public blockchains, and smart contract operational risk.

Supporting talent and teams in digital assets

What we consistently see across the market is that tokenisation experience is becoming a genuine differentiator. In many cases, professionals have developed that expertise within their current roles without fully recognising how valuable it has become.

Broadgate supports the crypto and digital assets market through specialist executive search, contract hiring, and embedded recruitment solutions designed for compliance and adaptability in fast-moving regulatory environments.

Alongside specialist hiring, Broadgate works with clients on regulatory and compliance capability building as tokenised markets move into production.

If you’re building a tokenisation-focused legal, risk, or compliance function, or working in this space yourself, we would welcome a conversation.

Please reach out to our digital asset and crypto recruitment specialist, Annabel Lovell, to learn more about the shape of the current market: Annabel.lovell@broadgatesearch.com.