London AM Graduate Analyst Compensation Advice

Hi WSO,

I'm looking for a little advice on compensation at this stage in my career.

I'm a (Quant) Risk Analyst at a private fixed income AM shop in London (AUM is c. £40-50bn, with around 75 employees globally). I put "Quant" in brackets as it's a more general analyst position, involving work for both my team and the investment team. I have been with the firm since getting my Bachelors in summer 2018 (I interned a year before). I'm also a level II CFA candidate (most of our senior management are charterholders).

I joined with a starting salary of £35k, with a 10% bonus. This was bumped to £38k (c. 9% increase) a year later at my first pay review (scored 3/4).

I'll happily admit that I didn't add a lot of value when I joined (so I was happy with that base, and didn't push for an increase last year), but my experience and responsibilities have since increased markedly. I've also been directly involved in the delivery of several projects over the last year (leading a couple of them), which were all succesful and well received by other teams.

My contemporaries working in AM and commerical banking are mostly on £40-45k already (unsure of bonus) with the same amount of experience. A couple have moved, but most joined two-year grad schemes are rolling into Analyst positions. I'm not currently paying much attention to those I know in IB, as they're on a different level.

My next review is due in the next few weeks, so I am trying to gauge what sort of salary increase I should expect/possibly ask for. Looking at similar roles on benchmarking sites like Glassdoor, it appears that my base should be closer to £50k. This is clearly a large YoY increase, so I fear that it won't be possible based on whatever budget has been allocated to salary increases for this year. At the same time, our performance has been strong (even following recent events) and I'm sure it goes without saying that most other people at the firm are being paid an awful lot more. Hence, the $ increase is a drop in the ocean in the grand scheme of things.

It's worth mentioning that I plan on moving into an Investment Analyst role on completion of CFA, moving firms if absolutely necessary.

Does anyone have any insight into what I should realistically expect, and how I should best approach this? I am otherwise happy at the firm (I recently bought a small amount of equity) and would rather not leave (at least until I finish CFA).

Thanks!