Salaries in Research (UK)

Hi,

I opened a similar thread earlier concerning Sales but as I am considering a BB research role as well, I was just wondering what people can tell me about how it compares to Trading and Sales in the long run. I gathered from posts in my other thread that you get a lot less in bonuses which seems quite a big downside. Can somebody maybe put numbers on it (in particular across the whole length of a career) and tell me a bit more about its other advantages/disadvantages as a long-term career path in comparison to the other two?

 

Thanks for the files, pretty cool! Answers most questions salary-wise except the comparison to Trading. Quite interesting that according to the survey, Research people seem to do quite a bit better than Salespeople across most sectors. I have heard about the differences in exit ops to HF but is that the only difference? Anything to be aware of in terms of work-life balance or other factors?

 
Best Response

This is anecdotal to my bank (NYC, BB) but here goes.

Starting from the Associate level: IBD makes the most, and comp rises fairly linearly over the first 5 years, with some huge variation as you look farther out based on deal flow, relationships, and area of focus.

At the beginning Research comp does not escalate nearly as fast as in IBD, but there is a huge "hockey stick" curve when an Analyst starts to cover his own names. So basically Research guys will make (much) less first during the first 4-5 years (give or take), but then will catch up with IBD later as pay rises very fast (again with very wide variation; and most of them usually won't make as much as bankers overall). But a "franchise analyst" can have huge salaries past bankers, while a random analyst covering some random sector will prob make much less.

Sales compensation tracks a little more linearly than Research, but overall Sales and Research guys are making similar compensation. Comp probably rises faster in sales than Research at early levels, but doesn't have that hockey stick curve longer-term. I don't think the top sales guys make the same as the top bankers or research guys.

I don't know if this helps. There is a massive range of compensation levels based on sector and individual performance. But this is how I look at it.

 

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