Sales and marketing are set to be the recruitment bright spots within the UK’s financial services industry in the first quarter of 2011.

According to the latest CBI/PwC Financial Services Survey, the firms are planning to invest more in marketing, where a balance of +18% of firms say they expect to spend more in the coming year.

And in the next three months, the highest percentage of firms since the question was first asked in March 2009, expect growth will come from selling new products and acquiring new domestic customers. The survey cover the three months up to December.

Susan Bor, director group resourcing at RBS, told Recruiterthat she expects growth in digital marketing, and in mobile channels where, the bank is focused on gaining a competitive advantage.

This includes customer messaging (SMS alerts), banking, iPhone, iPad and Android apps, and payments.

“This is an area where skills are already in very high demand and expected to become more so throughout this year. The challenge is to be more creative in candidate acquisition, for example using social media (e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter) to access candidates directly,” says Bor.

Bor says she also expects to see “a slight increase” in sales roles: relationship managers, private bankers, business development managers compared to the previous quarter. She says these roles will be in RBS’s wealth management and corporate banking and retail divisions (financial planning). This is due to expansion in private banking, transformation projects, and attrition across all divisions.