The term of the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, expires in 2013, and the U.K.'s central bank has kicked off the search for its next leader by posting a help wanted ad in the Economist. CFO magazine took a look at whether any finance chiefs could win the post by examining the odds on the leading candidates given by William Hill, a British betting firm.

According to those odds, the top contenders are regulators. The current favorite is Paul Tucker, the Bank of England's deputy director, and other candidates with good odds include Mark Carney, the head of the Bank of Canada, and Adair Turner, the head of the UK Financial Services Authority. William Hill does cite odds on a few finance executives, including John Varley, who served as Barclays' CFO and later as CEO; Douglas Flint, CFO of HSBC back in the 90s and now its chairman; and Peter Sands, Standard Chartered's former CFO and current CEO.

Over at BusinessWeek, economics editor Peter Coy looked into applying for the job himself.