General Information

• Type of contract: Traineeship
• Who can apply?: EU nationals eligible for our traineeship programme
• Grant: The trainee grant is €1,170 per month plus an accommodation allowance (see further information section)
• Working time: Full time
• Place of work: Frankfurt am Main, Germany
• Closing date: 21.10.2025

Your team

You will be part of the ECB’s Directorate General Market Operations. Our Directorate General has around 180 staff responsible for implementing the monetary policy of the Eurosystem. We do so by preparing, executing and analysing a wide range of Eurosystem monetary policy and foreign exchange operations. As part of our activities in financial markets, we also manage the ECB’s foreign reserves and own funds portfolios. We develop and maintain the Eurosystem monetary policy implementation framework and contribute to policy proposals for its continuous improvement. To effectively achieve our goals, we monitor and analyse financial market developments to support the design and effectiveness of our operations. As well as maintaining regular contact with financial market participants, we work closely with other ECB business areas, the national central banks of EU Member States and other authorities.

Market Operations traineeships are aimed primarily at graduates with an interest in financial data analysis, financial markets and/or monetary policy implementation.

The ECB is an inclusive employer and we strive to reflect the diversity of the population we serve. We encourage you to apply irrespective of age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, race, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or other characteristics.

Your role

As a trainee in the Directorate General Market Operations, you will contribute to the operational and analytical tasks of your division, working closely with experts on a wide range of monetary policy implementation activities. You will have a unique opportunity to develop your teamwork skills and gain hands-on experience, delivering insights, findings, reports, presentations and other analytical outputs to colleagues in your division and diverse stakeholders within the Eurosystem.

As part of our team, you will also showcase and expand your data analysis skills as you:

• collect and process data;
• investigate and integrate data from different sources;
• visualise and communicate findings using tools such as Tableau, Power BI or Python;
• assist professional teams in developing IT applications.

Throughout your traineeship you will be given opportunities to learn and contribute to the goals of your team while collaborating with more senior colleagues on some of the activities listed below:

Cross Market Analysis and Intelligence Division

• working closely with financial market experts to prepare high-impact briefings and presentations that directly influence key decisions;
• supporting market intelligence and longer-term analytical projects with valuable data insights;
• developing data-driven quantitative tools for market analysis and fostering the adoption of common analytical methods across the Directorate General.

Market Operations Frameworks Division

• monitoring and analysing the performance of the Eurosystem monetary policy implementation framework and its impact on the Eurosystem’s balance sheet, and helping to prepare related policy proposals;
• learning about and helping to maintain and enhance the Eurosystem’s collateral and counterparty frameworks by performing data analysis, testing software and improving internal business intelligence reporting;
• working closely with our experts to adapt the Eurosystem monetary policy implementation framework to the challenges of climate change and the application of climate change-related sustainable and responsible investment principles in Eurosystem non-monetary policy portfolios.

Market Operations Solutions and Innovation Division

• driving innovation in business processes by leveraging automation, new technologies and data analytics and visualisation tools;
• engaging in a range of machine learning and AI projects, including sentiment analysis, building LLM-powered systems and performing statistical inference;
• analysing and configuring financial instruments in the ECB’s treasury management system and supporting users to ensure operations run smoothly;
• developing, executing and organising manual and automated testing.

Liquidity and Investments Division

• supporting the Division’s activities in relation to various ECB portfolios (foreign reserves, monetary policy and own funds);
• contributing to various regular reports on financial markets, covering e.g. developments in major bond, equity and foreign exchange markets;
• assisting with the production of ad hoc analyses and summaries of meetings with external counterparties, in particular investment banks;
• analysing bidding behaviour in the ECB’s monetary policy operations, examining changes in the Eurosystem balance sheet and investigating the effects of monetary policy decisions on liquidity conditions and money market rates.

The traineeship offers you considerable exposure to financial markets and practical approaches to implementing monetary policy. You will also be able to dive deep into data, experience a dynamic operational environment and feel part of a larger mission.

You will be part of a multicultural team that strives for continuous innovation to make a positive impact on the lives of European citizens.

Qualifications, experience and skills

Essential:

• a bachelor’s degree or higher in finance, economics, econometrics, STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) or a related discipline;
• a basic understanding of financial markets and ECB monetary policy operations;
• experience using one or more programming or query languages or tools used in economic and financial analysis (e.g. SQL, Python, R, MATLAB, Stata, VBA or Java);
• experience preparing, analysing and visualising complex data (e.g. financial market data, transaction-level data, micro data, high frequency data or survey data);
• a good knowledge of the MS Office package;
• an advanced (C1) command of English and an intermediate (B1) command of at least one other official language of the EU, according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

Desired:

• a master’s degree in finance, economics, econometrics, STEM or a related discipline;
• experience with market data services such as Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters/Refinitiv (Eikon and/or DataStream);
• an advanced knowledge of MS Excel;
• experience using one of the following: Tableau, Power BI.

You are curious and eager to learn, and want to further develop your ability to analyse complex information. You are keen to collaborate with others, pursue team goals and learn from other people’s diverse perspectives. You strive to know and anticipate stakeholder needs, and will signal any need for change and propose alternative solutions.

You are motivated to contribute to the ECB’s mission, to serve the citizens of the EU as a member of a public institution and to work with colleagues from all over Europe. You are keen to be part of our team and to use your skills and competencies to achieve the aims of this position.

Further information

Initial traineeship of six months, with a possible extension to up to 12 months in total. The start date will be in February 2026 or later.

Other details on the conditions applicable to traineeships at the ECB can be found on our website.

For additional information regarding this vacancy notice, you can contact Felix Tabbert or Niels Krieghoff.

Application and selection process

The recruitment process for this position will include an online interview.

Further information on how to apply is available on our website.

If you are not selected for this position but are still considered suitable, you will be placed on a reserve list for 12 months from the closing date for applications, from which you might be considered for other traineeship positions within the ECB.