What does a junior analyst earn in hedge funds?

Base of £70k to £95k, with a cash bonus of roughly 30% to 100% of base. Midpoint total compensation is about £135k.

How long does it take to reach Portfolio Manager in hedge funds?

About 8y from the bottom of the ladder, assuming promotion on schedule at every stage. In practice most people move firm at least once along the way and the timing shifts with it.

Hedge fund salary, by level

A hedge fund analyst in London earns a base salary of £110k to £150k, with a discretionary bonus tied to the book that can run from half of base to several times it. Mid-range total compensation is around £295k, and a portfolio manager's midpoint is near £1m. The spread at a single level is the widest in finance.

A good year and a bad year in the same job can differ by more than the entire base salary. At multi-manager platforms a sustained drawdown usually ends the job outright.

Every level

Market

Single-manager and multi-manager platforms in London. The spread at every level is the widest in finance.

UK & Europe compensation by level, all firms, describing 2021
Level	Base	Bonus	Total (mid)	Reached at
Junior Analyst	£70k to £95k	30% to 100%	£135k	On joining
Analyst	£110k to £150k	What the pod earns on the book, at 10% to 20% of P&L£250m book, 5% year£1.3m to £2.5m£250m book, 10% year£2.5m to £5m£500m book, 5% year£2.5m to £5m£500m book, 10% year£5m to £10m£1bn book, 5% year£5m to £10m£1bn book, 10% year£10m to £20mAn analyst at a multi-manager platform is not on a discretionary bonus. The pod keeps a contractual share of its net P&L, usually between a tenth and a fifth, and every seat on it is paid from that pool: the portfolio manager takes theirs first and the analysts are paid out of what is left, at the manager’s discretion. The number that decides an analyst’s year is the book’s, not their own review.	£295k	2y
Senior Analyst	£150k to £200k	What the pod earns on the book, at 10% to 20% of P&L£250m book, 5% year£1.3m to £2.5m£250m book, 10% year£2.5m to £5m£500m book, 5% year£2.5m to £5m£500m book, 10% year£5m to £10m£1bn book, 5% year£5m to £10m£1bn book, 10% year£10m to £20mAn analyst at a multi-manager platform is not on a discretionary bonus. The pod keeps a contractual share of its net P&L, usually between a tenth and a fifth, and every seat on it is paid from that pool: the portfolio manager takes theirs first and the analysts are paid out of what is left, at the manager’s discretion. The number that decides an analyst’s year is the book’s, not their own review.	£505k	5y
Portfolio Manager	£200k to £300k	What their share pays, at 10% to 20% of P&L£250m book, 5% year£1.3m to £2.5m£250m book, 10% year£2.5m to £5m£500m book, 5% year£2.5m to £5m£500m book, 10% year£5m to £10m£1bn book, 5% year£5m to £10m£1bn book, 10% year£10m to £20mA portfolio manager is not really paid a bonus. They keep a contractual share of what the book makes, usually a fifth or less, net of the desk’s own costs: data, technology, and the analysts working for them. The multiple on this row averages good years and bad; these are what one good year on a book of a given size pays. A flat year pays the base and nothing else.	£1m	8y

Figures describe 2021. Bonus as a multiple of base, rounded to five percentage points. Read the multiple as an average across good years and bad rather than as a target: at a multi-manager platform no rung here is paid a bonus in the ordinary sense, they are all paid out of what the book makes.

What the cash figures leave out

Every rung on this ladder is funded by P&L rather than by a bonus pool. The pod keeps a contractual share of its net profits, the portfolio manager takes theirs from it, and the analysts are paid out of the same pool at the manager’s discretion. That is why a good year and a bad year in the same seat differ by more than the entire base salary, and why a sustained drawdown usually ends the seat rather than shrinking the bonus.

Established mid-sized to large funds in the US. A seat at a fund that has a bad year pays the bottom of every band on this table, whatever the title says.

United States compensation by level, all firms, describing 2025
Level	Base	Bonus	Total (mid)	Reached at
Junior analyst	Not published	Not published	$100k to $150k	On joining
Analyst	$100k to $150k	What the pod earns on the book, at 10% to 20% of P&L$250m book, 5% year$1.3m to $2.5m$250m book, 10% year$2.5m to $5m$500m book, 5% year$2.5m to $5m$500m book, 10% year$5m to $10m$1bn book, 5% year$5m to $10m$1bn book, 10% year$10m to $20mAn analyst at a multi-manager platform is not on a discretionary bonus. The pod keeps a contractual share of its net P&L, usually between a tenth and a fifth, and every seat on it is paid from that pool: the portfolio manager takes theirs first and the analysts are paid out of what is left, at the manager’s discretion. The number that decides an analyst’s year is the book’s, not their own review.	$375k	2y 6m
Senior analyst	Not published	Not published	$500k to $1m	6y
Portfolio manager	Not published	What their share pays, at 10% to 20% of P&L$250m book, 5% year$1.3m to $2.5m$250m book, 10% year$2.5m to $5m$500m book, 5% year$2.5m to $5m$500m book, 10% year$5m to $10m$1bn book, 5% year$5m to $10m$1bn book, 10% year$10m to $20mThe $500,000 to $3,000,000 on this rung is a range because the seat is paid out of the book rather than out of a salary band. The arrangement is a contractual share of P&L, net of the desk’s costs, and it is what makes the top of that range reachable and the bottom of it normal.	$500k to $3m	10y

Figures describe 2025. Only the analyst rung carries a base range in the source, so only that rung has a bonus multiple. The rest show published total compensation. None of it is a bonus in the ordinary sense: at the platforms every seat is paid out of the pod’s share of its own P&L.

What the cash figures leave out

The analyst band spans $200,000 to $600,000 because that is genuinely the range: the guides describe bonuses running from nothing to twice base at the same job title. A number in the middle of that is not a prediction of what you would earn, and deferral is now normal at the platforms, with a share of any large bonus held back for three years or more.

Where these numbers come from

Published buy-side career-path guides, aggregatedRead September 2026; most carry no revision date
North American total compensation by level in private equity, hedge funds and venture capital, and time spent at each level. Rounded across guides rather than reproduced from any single one.
US Department of Labor, H-1B Labor Condition Application disclosure data2025 filings
Offered annual base wage by employer, job title and worksite. Percentiles below are computed from those rows, not taken from anyone else’s summary.
Licence: US public domain

Ranges, not offers. Compare every track.

Weighing it against something else

Private equity vs Hedge funds Investment banking vs Hedge funds Hedge funds vs Venture capital

Other tracks

Investment banking Private equity Private credit & special situations Venture capital Quant Software engineering Data science & ML BizOps Corporate strategy

For what these jobs involve day to day and how people get into them, see the career path map. For open roles and deadlines, the opportunity tracker.

Getting to the next rung

Analyst to associate

Most people arrive here from a banking analyst job. This is that decision, including when to stay and when to move across.

Buyside Recruitment Bootcamp

The headhunter playbook, the modelling test and the case, for anyone crossing into private equity, hedge funds or asset management.