Credit or Equity Research at Barclays (London)

Hey folks,

I received 2 offers for the Research summer internship at Barclays in London - one from equity and the other from credit research. Now I'm familiar with the differences between the 2 and I'm pretty confident I'll end up choosing Credit Research for the following reasons:

  • Barclays is consistently ranked 2nd or 3rd in European Credit Research from what I've been told/the little I can see from Institutional Investor/Euromoney. This would be excellent for a post-MiFID II world.

  • Credit Research would be more of a challenge, as I am a bit less familiar (like most finance graduates I suppose) with the fixed income market. I see it as a great opportunity to learn about one of the world's biggest markets.

  • I actually had the opportunity to talk to the Credit Research team and they simply all seemed really friendly, so definitely a place where I could picture myself working.

The area where I might have a small concern is regarding how easy it is to move up the ladder in Credit VS Equity Research. Since there are way fewer jobs, is it also way harder? What is the overall prospect for Credit Research in the future? And finally regarding the exit ops, I know equity research has great ones, from specialized positions within hedge funds, the buy-side, to a lot of finance-related jobs in the industry you cover. Is it the same for Credit Research? How does it differ?

In any case, thanks for taking the time to read this and I look forward to reading your answers!

6 Comments
 

Ok thanks! If I should plan to stay in research as you said, do you know how hard it'll be to grow within it? How do you go from doing a lot of the spreadsheet work to being the one that brings in clients, i.e. the source of revenue for the bank?

 

Progressing as a junior should be fairly straightforward—similarly to other IB roles. You’ll get to speak to clients on a daily basis more so than other IB roles, so the switch from spreadsheet to clients is natural. As a senior there will always be the issue that there may be an MD already covering your sector—and you’ll more-or-less have to wait or lateral.

 

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