What is the salary for a buy-side economist with 6 years of experience and master's level education?
I'm looking for jobs in London as an Emerging Markets Economist at a buy-side firm such as Invesco, Legal & General, AXA IM, Pinebridge, etc. I'm not interested in sell-side companies like JPMorgan or Goldman.
To be more specific, I have 2 masters, one in economics and another one in finance and also speak speak Spanish which is very relevant in the EM space.
I've tried Glassdoor but there is little information. On one hand you have crazy salaries from sell-side (100K and above) or relatively low salaries from government institutions and purely research firms like EIU, Capital Economics and Oxford Economics.
Another idea I have is to have my profile evaluated by a head-hunter. I've emailed different places but no one replies. Obviously I'd pay for this services but don't know whom to contact at this point.
What's your specific work background - is your work experience in sovereign credit, rates/FX strategy or anything directly relevant like that?
If so for a LO you'd probably be looking at about 100-115k GBP base with a 30-50% bonus. Hedge funds would pay a similar base, maybe slightly higher on the top end, but bonus can be a multiple of that.
If your background isn't directly relevant but say, in the same ballpark (general macro) in my experience they may try push you into a more junior role: a couple of years ago when I was first looking for buyside jobs (with around 3-4 years non-buyside xp) a recruiter for a large LO quoted me 47.5k GBP as a base salary, not sure about bonus. However it definitely seems to scale rapidly once you're in and it's a great strategy to cover.
Thanks for the reply. I appreciate it.
I actually already work as an EM economist for an asset management in the continent. However, it seems to me we (the economists at the firm) are mostly a marketing tool. We write notes to circulate to clients, write articles for our website and interview with journalists. On the side I have been trying to work more closely to PMs and meet with them to give them my views on the sovereigns that I cover, but it's not like I'm doing something super fancy.
Anyway, not sure what economists do at other AMs but I suspect it's probably something similar to us.
Maybe I'm underestimating what you're doing and dismiss my advice if so, but to be seriously considered at your level of experience you should be able to easily make detailed trade recommendations in either local or hard currency (depending on the strategy ofc); if you're not actively doing this already it's not really something you can feign for an interview. Doubly so if they say, want you to talk about distressed names and it gets more technical.
You say you don't want to go to the sellside but I wouldn't rule it out; it's a great foundation especially for rates/FX strategy and they're probably more likely to take someone reasonably junior and train them up vs a fund (more seats as well). Also good money if that's a concern. The sovereign teams of ratings agencies are also a great foundation if you're more interested in credit; 2 or so years there will drill the "framework" into you and open doors for you at the types of funds you mention.
Not at all trying to discourage you by the way - a strong economics background will give you a solid foot in the door - but I think you might need to just build up a specific sovereign skillset if you haven't already.
Unlikely you would get work visa sponsorship.
Thanks again for the reply. Really appreciate the input as this is not something I can discuss with colleagues.
You make very good points. With a bachelors and masters in economics and a masters in finance, I definitely think I have the tools to go a bit further in terms of what I do at work, I just don't happen to be in a setting that encourages that, which is partly why I want to change.
Part of the reason I'm not interested in sell-side is because I focus on LatAm and LatAm sell-side research is all located in New York, and work visas are a pipe dream. But maybe I should bite the bullet and be willing to do other EM regions that are covered from London such as EMEA.
In any case, I would still be interested to know if there is such thing as getting your profile assessed by a recruiter/headhunter to understand your market value. So far I haven't found information on this sort of services (perhaps they don't even exist).
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