Teams and skills for working in research sell-side research departments are divided into teams to allow specialization in an asset class and an industry. Typically researchers split into equities fixed income which covers corporate bonds and commodities economics and effects. The equities and fixed income departments then divided into sector teams which cover groups of companies with similar business models. The consumer teams, for example would cover consumer goods and retailers. The natural resources teams would cover metals and mining and oil and gas companies. The bank's insurance and real estate teams are often considered specialized as analysts use different approaches for analysis and valuation of these companies compared with other companies.

The sector teams are usually supported by a strategy team that identifies more thematic investment ideas. For example, they might consider or recommend which sectors to buy based on macro data. ESG teams help support the sector teams to understand the environmental social and governance risk of the companies that they are analyzing and they'll often produce thematic research that cover these issues.

The Quant teams produce research which identify investment ideas purely from quantitative analysis of data. They don't need to know the companies in any detail. So they don't have a sector specialism. Although this specialism in sectors and asset classes helps develop a very deep knowledge of the companies that they cover communication between sectors and asset classes is essential for generating investment ideas. For example, a discussion between a credit analyst and an equities analyst might help to identify an arbitrage opportunity between how a company's bonds and shares are priced. Although the skills needed in research vary slightly by asset class and sector specialism. There are a number of fundamental skills, which are needed. Those are firstly the accounting modeling and violation skills, which are absolutely essential for all analysts. In addition attention to detail and quick thinking is really important analysts need to be a trusted advise of their clients. So being inaccurate or too slow when responding will undermine your clients trust. Strong math and analytical skills are also critical. However, it's important to appreciate that. It's not enough just to be a numbers person analysts need to be able to communicate their ideas really effectively. So very strong written and verbal communication skills are just as important as the math side of things.