Question 1

What does an investment banking analyst earn in London?

Accepted Answer

At a bulge bracket bank a first-year analyst base sits around £55k, with a cash bonus typically 30% to 60% of base. That puts total compensation near £80k. Base is close to standardised across the large banks; the bonus is where they differ.

Question 2

How does banking pay change from analyst to managing director?

Accepted Answer

Base roughly quadruples across the ladder, but the bonus does the real work: it starts near a third of base at analyst level and can exceed twice base by managing director. Total compensation therefore rises far faster than salary alone, from about £80k to £1.2m at the midpoint.

Question 3

How long does it take to reach VP in investment banking?

Accepted Answer

Between five and a half and six and a half years from starting as a first-year analyst at most large banks, assuming promotion on schedule at every stage. Banks with a six-month Associate 0 stage tend to run slightly longer.

Question 4

What does a private equity associate earn?

Accepted Answer

A first-year associate at a mid-market or upper-mid-market fund sits around £100k base with a cash bonus of roughly 60% to 100%, so about £180k in cash. Carried interest is not in that figure and is the reason people take the job: it typically starts around VP, vests over several years, and pays only when a fund returns capital.

Question 5

What does a hedge fund analyst earn?

Accepted Answer

Base sits around £130k, but the bonus is discretionary and tied to the book, ranging from roughly 50% to 200% of base. The spread at one level is the widest in finance: a good year and a bad year in the same seat can differ by more than the entire salary, and at multi-manager platforms a sustained drawdown usually ends the seat.

Question 6

What does a venture capital associate earn?

Accepted Answer

Around £85k base with a modest cash bonus, so roughly £110k in total. Cash is the small half of venture compensation. Carry is long-dated and highly uncertain, a fund can take a decade to return capital, and most junior hires leave before any of theirs vests.

Question 7

What does a quant researcher earn in London?

Accepted Answer

At a hedge fund or prop trading firm, a researcher two to five years in sits around £130k base with a bonus that usually exceeds it, so roughly £285k in total. A bank quant desk pays materially less and a top prop firm materially more, which is why the two are separate tables rather than one average.

Question 8

What does a machine learning engineer earn in London?

Accepted Answer

A senior machine learning engineer or data scientist sits around £110k base with a bonus target in the low tens of a percent, so about £125k in cash. Equity is not in that figure. The UK-wide median for the occupation is far below it: London and the large employers are a market of their own.

Question 9

What does a BizOps or Strategy & Operations manager earn?

Accepted Answer

Around £90k base in London plus a bonus, so roughly £105k in total, with equity on top at the larger technology employers. The band is wide because the same job is advertised as BizOps, Strategy & Operations, Business Strategy and Chief of Staff, and every salary survey files those differently.

Question 10

What does a corporate strategy manager earn?

Accepted Answer

Around £85k base in London, so roughly £100k with bonus. In-house strategy prices against consulting at the junior end, because that is where it hires from, and diverges above manager where a corporate ladder pays less cash and more long-term incentive.

Question 11

What does a senior software engineer earn in London?

Accepted Answer

At a large technology firm, base sits around £145k with a cash bonus target of roughly 10% to 20%. Equity is missing from that and is most of senior technology compensation. Senior maps to Google L5, Meta E5 and Amazon SDE III; note that Amazon runs a level behind the other two.

What the ladder pays

One track at a time