Consulting vs Investment banking
Consulting is paid to answer a client’s question and investment banking is paid to execute a transaction. Consulting hours are lower and the work broader and shallower. Banking teaches modelling and deal mechanics in depth. Entry pay is close, with banking ahead once its bonus is counted, and both feed private equity and corporate strategy by different doors.
Graduates rarely choose between these on merit. The decision is usually made by which process they get through, so the useful question is what you want to be good at after two years: structuring an unfamiliar problem for a senior audience, or building a model of a transaction that is right to the decimal.
By Surojit Chakraverti, founder of L3VLUP and an investor running a long-short healthcare and technology equities strategy.
Side by side
| Consulting | Investment banking | |
|---|---|---|
| What you actually do | Analyse one question for a client over six to twelve weeks: interviews, data, a model of the problem, and the slides that carry the recommendation. Then a new client and a new industry. | Build the models, books and process documents that get a transaction signed, for the same few deal types, repeatedly. The learning is depth in a narrower set of tools. |
| Hours | Roughly 55 to 75 a week at the strategy firms and lower in technology and implementation, with the peak before a steering committee. Many teams also travel to the client Monday to Thursday. | Roughly 70 to 90 a week as an analyst, and the work arrives when the client sends it. Fewer weeks are predictable. |
| What you are judged on | Structure and communication: whether the argument holds, whether the page makes it clear, and whether a client would trust you in the room. | Accuracy and reliability: whether the model ties, whether the book has no errors, and whether the work is done when promised. |
| How you get in | An application, online assessments, then case and fit interviews. Any degree is accepted. Most of the class is filled from the internship, so the summer matters. | A spring week or insight programme, an internship and a superday of technical and fit questions. Finance knowledge is tested directly. |
| Where people go next | Corporate strategy, operationally focused private equity funds, start-up operations, product management and business school. The exits are broad because the training is in problem structuring. | Private equity, hedge funds, corporate development and business school. The exits are narrower and closer to finance, and the banking route into private equity is the most worn. |
| Bottom of the ladder (total, midpoint) | Not published by the firms, so no figure is quoted. Entry pay at the strategy firms sits near the top of the graduate market, and at the Big Four and technology firms below it. | $105k (Analyst 1) |
| Top of the ladder (total, midpoint) | Partner pay is a share of the partnership’s profit, with a wide spread between partners in the same firm, so no single midpoint describes it. | $1.6m (Managing Director) |
| What the cash leaves out | The variable element is small: the Office for National Statistics records median incentive pay of about 7% of pay for UK management consultants and business analysts, across every level. Qualification and business school sponsorship at some firms, and travel, are the rest of the package. | Bonus is the whole story above analyst level and it is discretionary: two people at the same level and the same firm can be a year of base apart on total. Names vary at the top. What is shown here as Director is Executive Director at JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Barclays, and Director at Goldman Sachs and Citi. |
Converted from British pounds to US dollars at the European Central Bank euro reference rates of 2 November 2026. These are London market figures: converted, not a local figure.
Pay figures where they appear are midpoints of aggregated, rounded London market bands. Consulting pay is described rather than quoted, and its one public benchmark is named on the career path. Ladders and pay: consulting and investment banking.
Which one to pick
Consulting
Take consulting if you want breadth, better hours and the widest set of exits, and you would rather learn to structure a problem than to build a model. It is also the better choice if your degree is not in finance.
Investment banking
Take banking if you want the deepest technical training available to a graduate and the highest cash compensation, and you can take the hours for two years. It is the better choice if private equity is the goal.
Questions about this comparison
Discussions open here soon.
Other comparisons
For open roles and deadlines across every one of these, see the opportunity tracker.