Job culls and investment banking hiring freezes are hitting City headhunters, with leading recruitment house Michael Page today admitting that finding jbs for lawyers, accountants, computer systems contractors and marketing and personnel people in the Square Mile and Canary Wharf is becoming more difficult.

Michael Page reported a fall in income from placing staff in London's banking industry in the first three months of 2007, holding back growth in its UK operations to 6.7% year on year.

That puts the scale of the City slowdown into sharp relief as it compares with galloping UK growth reported by Page a year ago of more than 20%.

"We are down year on year in UK banking, but for us it is not necessarily as bad as some might be saying," said Page's chief executive Steve Ingham.

"There may be recruitment freezes at the big investment banks who may also be laying off staff, but we are involved in recruiting back-office staff across the whole range of financial institutions including hedge funds or smaller foreign banks. These institutions still need their compliance managers, their tax managers, their audit managers.

"But the situation is worrying in UK banking and there is a spillover into other disciplines like accounting, IT [information technology], legal, HR [human resources] and marketing."

The UK is the only blot on the international landscape for Page, which has made a point of diversifying globally away from its London financial roots.

Group turnover in the first quarter rose 33% to £140 million.