Will Analyst Base Pay Go Up in 2026? (London Edition)
Dear WSO crew,
Just wanted to throw this one out there for my fellow freaks in the sheets:
Is there any chance analyst base pay is going to increase in 2026?
Or are we officially accepting that £60–70k in London buys us about 3 Pret sandwiches, one stale cappuccino and a single-bedroom flat in Zone 17?
Don’t get me wrong — I love investment banking. Nothing quite like building a 120-slide CIM at 2am while a VP gently reminds you with that infamous orange box stating that the formatting “still looks like shit”.
But between inflation, tax, and the £20 cocktail that HR called a “networking event,” I’m wondering:
Is our real income dead?
Will the base ever rise again?
I get that bonuses are the vibe, but you can’t exactly max out your ISA with theoretical upside, can you?
With whispers of a pickup in M&A and capital markets (finally), I’m holding out hope that banks will stop treating base salary like a sacred relic from the Before Times.
Especially since everything else has gone up:
• Rent = min. £1,400 pcm
• Train strikes = up
• Cold pints = spiritually up
• Club entrance fee = half my mortgage
So… what’s the word?
• Are boutiques or BBs planning any base bumps?
• Anyone hearing noise from HR about COLAs?
• Or are we just getting another firm-wide email about “employee wellbeing” and a midday Friday yoga class that nobody will attend because who works in the office on a Friday?
Would love to hear from the grapevine — or at least from someone with better intel than my VP, who told me “you’re lucky to even be employed” (he says with a wink that may or may not be a cry for help).
Cheers in advance —
Signed,
A naive analyst 2
P.S.
If my MD is reading this: I love the firm, Yes, I have capacity, sending you those 50 sensitivity tables via email by midday…
Haha, definitely not. Sorry
no way it is that low wtf thats insane
Keep in mind the currencies have moved a ton. Pre-GFC GBP:USD was 2:1. So yes pay is way lower, but some of that is just FX weakness vs structural underpayment.
yeah that was what I figured just did not realize it is that expensive to live in London kind of sucks because I have citizenship and always wanted to live there for a few years then come back to nyc but it does not really seem worth it for the pay cut
whats your tc and hours if you dont mind me asking thats crazy some peoples base in London is 65k
i believe 110k is the upper limit for An1, which roughly translates to 150k usd. still pretty bad considering higher taxes, but still with lower general COL than NYC. i wouldn't say it's THAT much worse than nyc.
your telling me that people are getting grinded down working 100hrs/w at evr, pjt, jpm for an incremental 20k (with 60% marginal tax)
LOL
better to be in hsbc levfin
That’s better than NYC, COL-adjusted. Rent in NYC is much higher, the need to save is higher given that the state pays for nothing, and taxes are comparable.
good shops pay easily > £150k in first year
Lol. Name one.
That would be >100% bonus at most shops which simply has not happened at most shops since 2022.
Base in Paris is €90k for all BBs and good MMs (RBC, Nomura, Jefferies, Macquarie)
Rent is half of what it is in London
For how long are people gonna accept that
Might take time, based on demand–supply.
pretty sure after tax and conversions take home salary is exactly the same
paris is cheaper and a better city though
FYI tax rate is exactly the same between the two so take home is far superior in Paris
Wouldn’t say Paris is a better city. If you are part of a small world / coming from wealthy French families, yes. Otherwise, the culture at work pretty much sucks and the city does not offer as much as London (IMO). You have way less opportunities available, no diversity, people are not nice on a daily basis (most of the time), etc. Food is better though.
any particular reason why ldn is so much worse comp-wise than its european counterparts? theoretically it should pay the most because it's obviously the hub, plus it has the largest deal flow.
Cuz all the continental european hardos with 4+ languages and 4+ offcycles and 3 degrees are trying to break into ldn rather than their home office. So Ldn benefits from the great influx if overqualified candidates and it lowers the comp.
So continental EU has no choice but to increase the comp level to attract those home students who can speak relevant languages.
If you speak French and are in a position to live and work in Paris, then, yes, Paris is a “better deal” than London and NYC.
However, rent is even cheaper in Houston, Texas, USA, than in Paris, ans all-in salaries at Jefferies and Moelis Houston are higher than they are at a BB in Paris.
NYC and London are the “worst deals” financially, but they’re also the easiest places to break in for Americans and Brits, respectively, and also probably have higher “ceilings.”
Lol when I started in 2019 base salaries across BB were £45-50k and yet I felt so rich when I got the offer.
Rents for a nice room were roughly £950-1k at that time.
no
Ignore title - Analyst years can be atrocious but you hit 115/125/135 as associate 1/2/3 at most BBs and EBs, with bonuses floating around 80%-100%, which is not too bad while living alone. Agreed that cost of life is becoming insane and I am wondering every day if this tradeoff is worth it.
Honestly people should get away from the idea of receiving 100% Bonus as Associate, in a good year this might be the case but many are shocked when seeing at total comp is not going above 200k (which is still a great salary 3-4 years out of uni btw).
What about the VP level? Is 100% a given or most common at least?
Work less hours…average hourly pay is up! Bang!!
Sorry it’s the only way…
Pay is not determined by your cost of living, it is determined by demand supply.
Right now the supply is nowhere near low enough to warrant a pay bump.
So no. No bumps. The last bump took like >6 years (at least, idk exactly). We're like 3 years at least away from that
Recent bump at Moelis and upcoming one at Nomura (£65 to £75k)
How much was the bump at moelis? That Nomura bump A1?
Don't think Nomura is true, where did you hear that from?
Incoming an1 at a large BB starting in July for £70k
congrats on JP
or is Citi paying 70k nowadays
Think both, either way pay doesn’t seem to be rising.
MS also pays 70
MS JPM GS Citi all £70k
60 quid base salary??? for this type of labor?? blimey that's hardly enough to buy 3 killy whoppers from the gimme whats stop shop
First line actually sounds legit. Lost it at blimey though.
-brit
Wait till Rachel from accounts introduces a bank levy
It's fine, you can subsidize Richard and Julie's (72, 75yo, Wiltshire) P&O cruise this winter though!
Raises? Deloitte dropped the entire toy aisle on their grads last summer and called it comp
In answering this it is important to understand why UK base was historically lower than somewhere like NY:
American banks especially historically set cost expectations for UK offices with a significant discount because a more valuable GBP was seen as a given.
As GBP has lost value vs USD this assumption was never changed. Why? Because global leadership presumably have a basic understanding of economics and so know that wages are sticky down (they are more resistant to going down than up - people are going to resist lower wages but will gladly take pay rises)
With that in mind - an environment where it’s bloody difficulty to reduce staff costs, and they’ve been dropping naturally due to FX - why on earth would they go out of their way to raise them? You may argue in response that they may want to so that they maintain competitive comps compared to NY, but they’re not competing with NY, they are competing with other job opportunities in the UK. Remember that the median UK wage is 37k GBP, compared with the US at ~70k USD. The average ambitious Brit (who may not know any better - depending on who you ask) still has plenty of incentive at 60-70k and local offices still have plenty of incentive to not raise wages (they are getting a European main office/presence in a T1 city which is active during both US and Asian market hours, at a discount).
You may also argue that it is local offices that set pay and so the reference to global leadership is moot. To that I’d remind you that humans are ultimately incentive-driven creatures. The incentives for London office leadership, given that they are ultimately likely answering to someone from global head office, is still driven by personal career ambition. No London head exec wants to get onto a zoom call with their boss and explain to them that the London office is suddenly going to become a lot less profitable.
Given the UKs demographics, the fact that our NI contributions aren’t enough to support the state pension in a few years, I’d be much more worried about the incoming increased tax burden, and fight to try to change that rather than begging the American bosses to pay us more and lose the lucrative discount they have in London. The UKs preference towards being a poorly maintained open air museum which will always prioritise the cushy existence of wealthy pensioners over economic growth (and thus the priorities of young economicaly ambitious people) is going to do a lot more harm to our ability to get by than stagnant but still incredible wages for people starting out in this industry.
very spot on. Only one here thats made the connection to the broader economic situation in the UK (somewhat suprising for a finance forum although this is IB after all, I doubt most of these kids follow headlines beyond what AI company is raising/being acquired lately). The problem is both sides of the aisle tho, Rishi certainly didnt do much/anything to try to jumpstart the economy or revive the job market for the youth. Lets hope Farage has a better grip
I detest the fact that any criticism of the UK right now is seen as a criticism of labour rather than a criticism of the way it has been governed for decades prior. Trust me I am fully aware of the failings of governments before them also.
Personal opinion: The root cause of many of the economic problems faced by the average person in the UK is down to the town and country planning acts of 1947/97 - effectively you cannot build anything without the permission of the state, which in effect means the council - which in effect means retired pensioners who don’t want their local area ‘looking’ any different. Same thing applies to government projects such as infrastructure.
HS2 is so spenny not because its expensive to build, but because for every mile they incur many hundreds of thousands of consultation costs regarding nearby bat populations. People scoff at the 30 min to Birmingham time save, but that is almost half the journey time. Cutting down commute time between the nations two largest cities is objectively as close as you can get to a free lunch in terms of economic growth. In a world with scarce resources, the significance of that should dawn on you pretty quickly. But oh no, let’s spend £100m on a bat tunnel because Sue (78) and the village council she leads wrote a letter concerned about bat populations 15 miles away from the route. Infuriating.
Economic growth can only be achieved through browfield sites/productivity growth to a limited extent. At the end of the day, economic activity requires space to be economically active in.
I would gladly lose the ‘nice greenery’ of my London-orbital town if it meant that wages overall increased, that mortgages for myself and my future children became affordable, that utility companies could build infrastructure which didn’t incur planning and consultation costs greater than the entire cost of the Iraq war inquiry (note: that’s just planning costs).
Problem is no gov is going to ever release land for major development because that would increase housing supply and so homeowners would lose net worth due to falling house prices. No government wants to be the one to wipe hundreds of thousands off the net worth of the average member of the biggest voting block: homeowners. We as a generation are being cucked; it is proposterous that we effectively have the same land stock we did 70 years ago but expect economic growth. Farage isn’t going to change shit.
Curious what your view is
Director here.
Context: game has fundementally changed, fewer companies, more banks, lower deal fees, higher capital requirements on bank balance sheets = lower retun on tangible equity for IBs (at least full service BBs)
Ultimately, it's harder to win business, and less lucrative when you do, in Europe.
Outcome: not cataclysmic but alters the calculus... you no longer earn massive hits of (life changing) bonus in one go, but accrue wealth over time by persisting - sorry to say, no short term big bang solutions here other than calling crypto 10 years ago. Making money is hard.
Over time, discounted share purchase and sharesave schemes plus deferred comp in stock builds up. I have well into six figures of guaranteed comp coming next year from old deferred stuff... even if I get zeroed this year (not happening).
Observation one: bonuses become much more differentiated the more senior your get. Read 5x different from people even a few years more senior than you - that's my experience anyway. So I'm sorry, if you want to make the cash that justifies the sacrifice... you need to actually be good and you need to stick around longer.
Observation 2: you may not have been around for it. But base comp went up a lot through COVID for juniors... but not for the senior cohort. Banks are in a position now where upping junior base comp will also necessitate a move in senior comp lets there be a revolut at upper echelons (d and md base would be too close to vp3). See point in context above about bank profitability not really allowing that...
This is an amazing career - particularly if you actually like the subject matter- and one which generates an outrageously good quality of life versus any reasonable bellcurve... over time.
If you want boats and mansions, I'm afraid the 80s are gone. Go make an app, if you beleive you can be the 0.00001% who make that work.
You need to be glad to keep your job with all the layoffs and AI going on
Man when I started in 2019 base was 50k for an AN1
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