In response to the OP, there is no black and white answer. Generally, yes, quantitative roles tend to be more on the risk side of things here, particularly, credit. I dont have personal experience in that area, but I don't think that most banks would engage much in exotic credit derivatives so in that sense most of the work would be in credit scoring and more of the vanilla type variety.
The job you turned down doesnt sound very quanty, I have to admit, but Macquarie are probably the investment bank here featuring the biggest quant teams. I guess, you'll find quant roles here to be predominant in smaller firms such as Optiver, Tibra, Liquid Capital (the bigger ones amongst the small) and other small quant shops/ consultancies - with the former being heavy on the trading and especially development.
There is a decent number of hedge funds around which tend to employ a very small number of people (anywhere between 5 and 20). Slots dont open very often, personally, I have only known of three of them hiring in the past six months. There may be (have been) more as they tend to hire through their networks and dont make the roles public. You stand a good chance with them if your personality is not as geeky as your skills :D.
Also, what you tend to see here (not sure if that applies to other markets as well) is that jobs are initially pitched at very, very high calibre candidates (particularly when it comes to front office type jobs) who are expected to have five years plus experience. They tend to not find the profiles they are after and then adjust the profile to what the local market offers.