UK Asset Management Compensation & Hours
Currently working at a boutique in London as an equity analyst. In around 9am, out by 6pm. No weekends, although you obviously track your investments 24/7. Great team and I also have a lot of flexibility e.g. no issues with taking half a day off to sort out personal stuff. Could for example do this twice every month and nobody would say anything. As long as I get my work done, the expectation is to be at my desk maybe 80% of the time. No remote work however. As for mandate, we can pretty much look into anything we want but no individual shorts. I spend 30% of my time looking into stuff the PM requested and the remaining 70% is spent looking into whatever I want to delve into. Salary progression went as follows:
Year 1: £30k + 30% Bonus [£39k tot]
Year 2: £53k + 30% Bonus [£69k tot]
Year 3: £58k + 30% Bonus [£75k tot - Several changes that year, which meant everyone took in less]
There is no guaranteed salary progression at my company so I have no idea what I'll be offered in January.
In short, WLB is great however compensation is below my personal expectations, especially because my bonus is capped. My target is to find a position with a clear path to a total compensation of £150k by my 6th year if not earlier. Is this realistic in the UK? Does anyone know of firms I could look into? I am OK sacrificing WLB. Strategy wise, I like to buy and hold, so no shorting, which means that L/S positions aren't an option.
Thanks guys!
At an American fixed income shop in London, where hours are typically 9-8, and our base comp progression is:
Y0: £65k
Y1.5: £80k
Y3: £95k
Y4.5: £130k
Y6: £160k
Many thanks for sharing. Are you guys top of the range when it comes to compensation? Since you are in fixed income, do you know what Federated Hermes is like? They are mostly geared towards FI but added equities as of late I believe.
Is this base salary or total comp with bonus ?
Base salary. They'll pay you pennies in bonus (think 20%-30% bonus) until you reach the 4-5 year mark. Ramps up considerably from there, though - and is typically more predictable in distribution (50-100%) than research/PM (25-???%). Y4.5 is the MBA entry position. These guys are pulling in ~£200k.
Thanks a lot for this. Would you mind sharing bonus % too please ?
Are equity shops similar in this progression or this an outlier?
are you a junior? Would you happen to see a step-change in comp once you reach Y4? Your comp is in-line with UK / european firms' grad schemes (believe even similar to Fido's comp in the grad programme) but I would expect you to achieve at least low 100s at some point in your Y4-Y6.
Fwiw i'm at a pension and my target is mid100s for around that level of experience (4-6 yoe)
Can't compare to US fixed income funds, esp PIMCO which I suspect is one of the earlier comments, as they tend to pay top of market.
I was referred to as junior analyst until Y2, but everyone in the team (4 people including me) gradually dropped the "junior" part this year and my title was eventually updated in our internal presentations without really being told about it. By experience, yes I am the least experienced, next person up has 7-yoe, then 20-yoe each.
Pay bumps are really down to performance. We sold majority of the positions I brought to the table by the end of Y2, performance has generally been strong and the PM was happy about it. However, the positions I pitched this year were placed on hold as the PM felt that pessimism was still building up and that they could bottom further. I therefore don't have much to show for this year, which I suspect will affect my ability to ask for more in January.
Many thanks for sharing your salary data points, really helpful! Can I ask what your work environment looks like? Do you get a lot of autonomy?
You're right - it was PIMCO (I guess "American fixed income shop in London" doesn't really leave you with much). Our pay is benchmarked against Capital Group, Wellington, and T. Rowe. Blackrock pays a similar level at entry, Fidelity pays less surprisingly (I believe that they paid £37.5 back in 2010... must be at £50k now). The likes of M&G, Schroders, Baillie Gifford all pay less than that - closer to the likes of T2 consulting (£40k).
It doesn't seem to pay very well compared with other finance jobs.
There are most definitely long onlys paying more than this. I've had recruiters reach out to me about 80-90k base positions at long onlys when I had <1YOE on sell side. Not any of the big names either.
Ironically, I am exclusively approached for PE, consulting and VC roles (probably because I spent a couple years in industry then lateraled), none of which I am interested in. I find approaching other boutique AMs tricky as the interview process can be really long with no disclosure on pay until you hit the end. Interviewed at a shop last year and got dinged at the 7th round, which was also the stage at which they asked me about pay. Any chance you can share which headhunters contacted you?
I can't really remember. All the usual suspects and a bunch of randoms too.
HW Anderson, Selby, Greenwich, Dartmouth off the top of my head.
It's not that abnormal you're not approached that often if you're working for a boutique AM vs working for a tier 1 BB. Recruiters are mostly young and look for easy wins when doing outreach.
Message me if you’re open to sharing more context / background. Thanks!
Using throwaway for datapoints which I’ve found hard to come by also. One thing worth mentioning is obvious but pay is relative to the perception of wanting to keep you. A few career moves can make a huge difference and the ramp up is real with responsibility at the right shop.
The Magellan partners survey seems reasonable (as does Michael page) but not super detailed.
Started in a grad program for an insurance owned AM in multi-asset, moved to a bank owned AM - slightly more quant focussed. Gradually developed my set of responsibilities (trading, named pm, own strategies etc) and got a part time MSc done year 4-6. Whilst the ramp is not as aggressive as I would have maybe liked I appreciated the consistency and clear direction. Particularly year 4-6 when the pool was down - I suspect a lot was driven by my “personal” performance contribution which was consistently positive in this period. I was further helped by a colleague more senior by a few years leaving the team in my y4 whose role I effectively stepped into.
y1: 35k + 3k (“signing”) + 3k (bonus) - was only half a year
y2: 37.5k + 5k
y3: 40k (quit that year) moved to an analyst position at another firm towards the end of the year for 60k and got a 20k bonus for half a year (suspect my “foregone” bonus was a factor here)
y4: (after half a year) 75k + 41.5k
y5: 86.5k + 57k (promote to pm)
y6: 95k + expecting 65-80k tbc early next year and another bump in base to ~105
Sorry, to confirm as a PM you only took home around 130k (y5) - is that not very low for that type of seat?
On an relative basis it is low, though I’ve found at least within my network outside of multi-manager or single asset class space, particularly with my YOE it’s within 10% of market (all numbers I mention are in GBP) - although any data to the contrary is helpful 😅. I only got promoted y5 and named this year which is why y5/6 are odd.
My circumstance is somewhat unusual as I expect a discount as my total AUM under my name is low (low hundreds of m) and my team is quite small (we manage somewhere around $5-10b - which for a multi asset team is on the lower end outside of a boutique). It doesn’t help my team is senior heavy (two analysts, two portfolio managers and four senior PMs).
For my 2c there is huge variation in the numbers base on a huge number of factors but the shop, total aum, team aum and ownership seem to matter the most for base.
Hope it helps.
Excuse my non-comp relevant comment, but do you think firms are generally open for a part-time MSc (at around y2-y4), given that you have done it? Did you juggle CFA as well? How was the experience of doing the MSc part-time + work full-time?
To be clear I did it in the evenings so I wasn’t taking time out of the “workday” as it were - most of the top tier part time MSc seem to be half the class load but in usual class times. Broadly unknown outside of finance circles but there is one particularly good department for the course I took (mathematical finance) that had an evening option - at least in London!
I haven’t done the CFA as well, mainly as my management were comfortable not having to do it, but I will stress that from what I hear CFA may leave a door open but not having it can close them (I know a few more senior folk having to do it despite an abundance of experience for the “marketing”).
My take (fwiw) is that firms won’t mind you doing the MSc as long as it “doesn’t interfere”, so highly workload dependant (again assuming you are not taking time out of the day), but as far as I know not many places will pay for it (CFA will almost always be paid for), so it’s highly team and company dependant.
I was lucky in that a few people in my team have done PT MSc (or even PhDs) so they were super supportive and encouraged me to actually do it. I would say that be mentally prepared, it is tough as I found studying part time though relevant, is tiring (on top of the day to day work stress) and can be straining on personal relationships. I do not regret doing it at all. The take is you’ll basically go from in my case a 7/8-7/8 type hours to 7-12/1 most days and at least 6-12h on the weekend for the studying if you want to get the most out of it. I do think the “reward” is worth it and I partly did it to ensure my CV is staying relevant, but I loved the learning side too.
I would say if you can handle the hours (harder than it seems), it is worth it and can pay off, especially if you have the right structure at work. If you are considering something relevant to your work you may be able to “sell” it internally to get some study days etc. happy to take more questions feel free to PM
Either you are seriously underpaid or you are managing a low fee passive strategy (ie: ETF, IG mandate etc.). I guess this is not a BB bank owned AM?
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