Sacked after wedding

The City is not renowned for its sentimentality, but returning from honeymoon to be told you no longer have a job is a brutal experience by any standards.

That is what happened to financier Iain Macdonald, 35, last October, when he was told the team he had worked with at three different banks over four years was finally being broken up.

He said: "I got married on 8 September and then went to Venice for the honeymoon and within a month of being back I was made redundant. There were 10 of us who moved to this bank and of the original 10, there are now two guys left.

"I think as an individual you always run the risk of being sacked when you join this kind of institution, and that they have this option. People acknowledged that 11 September had not helped, and the market was not picking up. US investment banks are a lot more reactive like this, and you work harder but they pay more."

With the City job market in the doldrums Mr Macdonald said finding new work had not been easy, but an old contact eventually found him a temporary placement, which has now become a permanent position at Prudential M&G.

He added: "I think with the amount of recent redundancies, in my own mind I feel fortunate that I fell on my feet."