Macquarie Group x Generation

Summary

Macquarie has worked with Generation to create pathways into a diverse range of technology roles. To date, 13 Generation graduates have joined Macquarie as Junior Data Engineers, Networking Engineers, Service Desk Analysts, IT Device Management Analysts and Junior Production Support Engineers. This has given Macquarie an additional route into technology hiring while creating opportunities for Generation graduates from non-traditional backgrounds to build careers across a variety of technical roles.

About Macquarie

Macquarie Group is a global financial services group providing services in asset management, banking, advisory, and capital markets, with a strong focus on infrastructure investment. A global team of 6,000 engineers and technologists deliver innovative solutions that support our teams to invest in essential infrastructure, trade critical commodities and raise capital.

In the UK, Macquarie has been active since 1989, investing in key infrastructure such as energy, transport, and digital networks. The company focuses on connecting global investors with long-term infrastructure projects that support economic growth and public services.

The Challenge

Traditional hiring routes can favour candidates who already have a few years of experience, which can make it harder to bring in less experienced talent and develop them internally.

Some of the roles Macquarie needed to fill required more than technical knowledge alone. In teams such as Tech Assist, Macquarie’s onsite technology assistance team, success also depends on communication, problem-solving, customer service and the ability to work confidently in a fast-moving environment.

Macquarie needed a way to expand its talent pool to identify people with the right potential, transferrable skills, and motivation, while also creating roles and development pathways that would allow them to build their skills after joining.

How the Partnership Began

Generation is a global partner of the Macquarie Group Foundation, with the relationship initially grounded in funding employment pathways connected to the energy transition.

Through this partnership, Macquarie teams learned more about Generation’s approach to training and employment placement. The relationship subsequently expanded beyond grant funding to create a practical hiring pathway for selected technology roles at Macquarie.

Generation’s training and candidate model helped Macquarie identify people with strong motivation, transferable skills and the foundations to develop within a role. In turn the partnership connected Generation’s external employment work with career opportunities inside Macquarie. What began in one part of the organisation later expanded to include hires across more than one team.

Generation candidates have joined teams across Macquarie in roles including Service Desk Analyst, IT Device Management, Networking Engineer, Junior Data Engineer and Junior Production Support Engineer, demonstrating the breadth of opportunities available through the partnership.

Partnership Approach

Hiring into roles where foundational skills are valued

The partnership has worked best in roles where candidates can join with strong foundational skills and be supported by teams to help them build experience over time through the day-to-day responsibilities of the role.

For example, within Tech Assist, Macquarie has increasingly focused on hiring candidates with strong potential and core technical capabilities, rather than requiring extensive prior experience in a similar role.

This creates an entry point for Generation graduates to join with core technical foundations and gain practical experience through exposure to real work, collaboration with colleagues and the day-to-day demands of the role.

That model matters because Generation graduates are not being hired as experienced specialists. They are being hired into roles where learning potential, adaptability and transferable skills are just as important as existing technical knowledge, and where there is space to build confidence and capability over time.

Technical foundations combined with transferable skills

Generation graduates bring foundational technical knowledge alongside skills developed in other industries. Many come from customer‑facing sectors such as hospitality, bringing communication, resilience and service‑orientation, all essential in Tech Assist environments.

Generation’s programme also prepares candidates for workplace expectations, with an emphasis on accountability, communication and professional behaviours. This helps learners make the transition into corporate roles.

Macquarie and Generation work closely to ensure strong role fit. Rather than a high‑volume sourcing channel, the partnership is used selectively for roles that do not require deep prior technical experience and where hiring managers have the capacity to support employees as they build role-specific knowledge over time.

Measurable impact and results

Candidate Impact

For Generation graduates joining Macquarie, the partnership has created a route into technology roles that would have been difficult to access through traditional hiring pathways.

Both Ruben and Dayle came to Generation from non-traditional backgrounds and had spent much of their careers working in different sectors. For Ruben, COVID disrupted his previous career path as a chef and prompted him to explore opportunities in technology. Dayle had spent around a decade in hospitality and had an interest in IT, but no formal route into the sector. In both cases, Generation provided a structured way to move into technology and connect that training directly to a role at Macquarie.

The Generation programme supported that transition in two ways. First, it provided technical training aligned to the support roles they would go on to do at Macquarie. Second, it placed a strong emphasis on workplace habits and communication skills. Ruben highlighted the programme’s focus on attendance, routine and personal responsibility, alongside the “people side” of IT support, while Dayle remembered a mix of lab-based technical learning and customer-facing preparation. That combination helped both candidates move into Macquarie’s Tech Assist environment with a clearer understanding of the technical and interpersonal demands of the role.

The impact of the opportunity has extended well beyond joining Macquarie. Both Ruben and Dayle have since progressed within the organisation, with both being promoted and Dayle moving into a new department with a higher job title. Reuben has also received a Macquarie Award for his contribution to a local community organisation through Macquarie’s Volunteer Programme. These examples demonstrate how the partnership has supported candidates not only to enter the technology sector, but to build longer-term careers within it.

For Ruben, the change has been personal too. Reflecting on his journey from the Generation program to Macquarie, he described the experience as “basically completely transformative” and said he would be “unrecognisable” compared with where he was at the start. This reflects the wider impact of the partnership: creating an initial route into technology while giving candidates the skills, experience and confidence to see themselves building a longer-term career in the sector.

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