Question 1

How quickly will I see candidates?

Accepted Answer

For a defined short-term power brief, first calibrated CVs usually land inside two weeks.

Question 2

Do you cover permanent and contract?

Accepted Answer

Yes. We place permanent traders and run contract or interim cover for short-term gaps.

Question 3

What if the role is hard to fill?

Accepted Answer

Hard trading briefs start with research. We map the market, show adjacent pools, and set out the trade offs before you pick a route.

Question 4

Where does European power trading talent come from?

Accepted Answer

Mostly from somewhere else. 87% of the professionals on our register did not start in energy trading. Of those who came in from outside, 21% arrived from utilities and generation, 11% from academia, 10% from software and data, 7% from consulting and 5% from banking. It is the most useful single fact about hiring for a power desk: a search that only reads rival desks is working the smallest pool available.

Question 5

Which universities feed European power trading?

Accepted Answer

Engineering schools dominate and the feeders are strongly national. Imperial College London, EPFL, KTH, ETH Zurich and DTU lead, with Oxford, CentraleSupelec, Aarhus, Aalto and Ecole Polytechnique behind them. A desk hiring in Copenhagen and a desk hiring in Zurich are not competing for the same graduates, which is worth knowing before either one sets a salary.

Question 6

Where is the largest pool of power trading professionals in Europe?

Accepted Answer

The UK, followed by the Nordics, Germany, Eastern Europe, Benelux and France. Depth varies far more by role than by headcount: quants cluster in the UK, Switzerland and Denmark; forecasting talent in the Netherlands is second only to the UK; short-term traders are deepest in the UK, Germany and Switzerland. Build the desk where the people already are.

Question 7

Do power traders move firms, or move internally?

Accepted Answer

64% of role changes on the register are moves to a different employer and 36% are internal promotions or transfers. People also stay longer before an internal move. A desk that measures the market by its own leavers will underestimate how much the market around it is turning over.

Question 8

How large is the register?

Accepted Answer

8,221 unique professionals across 38 European countries and ten wholesale power markets, and 2,959 employers. Each market carries its own census and method, and every figure is published with the date it was counted.

Question 9

Which European power markets does Kraft Search cover?

Accepted Answer

Ten, each held as its own segment with its own bidding zones: the UK (GB), the Nordics (Nord Pool), Germany with Austria (DE-LU), Eastern Europe including the Baltics, Benelux, France, Switzerland, Iberia (MIBEL), Italy (GME zones) and Ireland (SEM, all-island).

Question 10

What is in scope and what is not?

Accepted Answer

Kraft Search is power-primary. We cover the people who trade, price, forecast, optimise, build and lead in European wholesale power markets. Hybrid power-and-gas desks are in scope. Pure gas, LNG, oil and metals desks are not.

Trading

Short-term power traders where every imbalance shows on the P&L.

Trading search at Kraft Search covers intraday, day-ahead, balancing, cross-border, algo and asset-backed traders across power, BESS, VPP and renewables.

What we place

I

Permanent Desk Hires

II

Trading Leadership

III

Market Mapping

How we hire into short-term power

Tighten the role

Map who trades it

Shortlist against the map

Run a contained process

Roles that Kraft Search places in short-term power

Intraday Trader

Day-Ahead Trader

Balancing Trader

Cross-Border Trader

Algo Trader

Asset-Backed Trader

What Founders ask us first.

How quickly will I see a first shortlist?

What happens if the role is hard to fill in my home market?

What does good look like?

Related Kraft Search sectors

Quant, Forecasting & Analysis

Optimisation

Trading Technology & Data

Risk, Credit & Treasury

Hiring into trading? Brief the role.

Send the product, the shift pattern, and the market. We will show you who is movable and what it takes to hire them.