More and more Britons are using property equity to buy a dream home in the sun. Foreign Currency Direct, a Buckinghamshire-based independent broker, helps them to exchange pounds into euros or other currencies and transfer sums abroad.

Half of the 56 employees earn more than £45,000 a year (all of the dealers, directors and officers are men), but the company gets the second-highest positive score for the lack of stress-related symptoms from the job, an impressive 93%. People say work doesn’t interfere with responsibilities at home either, with an 82% positive score for this question.

The business comes in first for staff saying that their team is fun to work with (96%) and second for giving them a buzz (89%). Its employees say they haven’t got much they would change about the organisation either (a top 10 positive score of 58%).

Everyone has performance-related pay and a handful have profit-related pay (with £2.7m in pretax profits last year to share). People appear happy with their pay and benefits (83%).

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BACKGROUND

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With an average age of 29, there is no pension scheme. Stephen Hughes, strategic planner, explains: “We don’t expect people to be doing this job forever, and they prefer to put their money into houses and property.”

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