Why so few east asians in london Vs NYC?
Looking at the linkedin pics of 2026 SAs... Ive noticed that for london there are very few east asians visible apart from couple of girls and sometimes they have 1-3 max east asian males out of 50-100+ summer cohort and very few of them were in FO.
Whereas for NYC/SF/LA Im constantly seeing 10-15 east asian males across the whole summer cohort. (Quite a lot of FO placements as well) However when it comes to like london target schools we all know that their Stem/finance courses are composed of 40-50%+ east asians whereas in US targets its usually around 20-30% for ALL asians.
Even for asian banks such as mizuho, Mufg, nomura it was mostly Whites + few asian girls. The only exceptions being DB and HSBC since I know that they recruit some mandarin/japanese speakers(makes total sense for hsbc tho). I guess generally asian countries have very little businesses with UK and london servers primarily as an EMEA hub. I thought that in the UK asians were grouped under BAME which should technically count as a DEI but seems like its more for south asians?
Sounds like you haven't actually dug deep enough because I've seen Barclays SA class this year there's definitely significantly more East Asian males than what you mentioned (at least 10). This is not to mention you have clearly missed out on SEA (specifically Malaysians and Singaporeans) which tend to have more presence in london FO finance than in the US. It could also be the case that not all East Asians want to post publicly on linkedin which does filter out
I was just checking based on the overall cohort pics that HRs post tho. Barclays didn't really have it. Also since barclays operates a full service banking business in the UK, only a fraction of their SAs are traditional FOs... seeing some asian males who got retail banking(lol)
Then that makes further more sense because not every banks that their HRs actually posted it. I'd also like to add UBS also having a lot of East Asian male too
For JPM(except Bournemouth) and MS(again, except Glasgow) couldn't rlly find any.
I think likely due to the fact that London banks hire a lot more (continental) European candidates, and those universities (and I speculate here as I don't have the data) I think have much lower East Asian populations than Anglo-Saxon countries
Tbf around half of the seats go to dei/nepo/socmobs and the other half is often reserved for EMEA nationals. Obviously there are nepo/dei Europeans so not all seats are completely out of reach for asian males. Generally speaking, European candidates (even women) are much more experienced compared to UK undergrads. So I would say Asian males are virtually competing for small fragments of the seats with White/Brown Brit hardos who will be considered as 'safe hire'. Also not being able to network/HR gatekeeping initial screening process play a big role, especially for BBs(GS, Citi etc). I generally recommend asian males attending targets to go for buyside firms and secondary markets since they tend to be more meritocratic/less-coverage needs driven. The guys I know only landed interviewees for super sweaty EBs/PEs and the interview rate for BBs and MMs were nearly 0. Not saying that females dont have a leg up for these places but worth a shot.
The fuck is an East Asian?
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Asians in “yookay” historically come from India and South Asia (commonwealth countries), which is why London banks have way more of them than NYC. If you ask someone in the UK what an “Asian” is they will immediately picture Indians. East Asians have deeper historical roots in America. Simple as that.
never thought I would see a drupka-ism on WSO
If you ask someone in the UK what an Asian is, they will immediately picture a Chinese, Korean or Japanese. Indians will only be a suspicious afterthought, and for the sole reason that indians have been massively LARPing as "East Asians" in an attempt to muddy the civilisational difference between, say, Tokyo, and Mumbai.
British Empire conquered South Asia + parts of Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei) but none of East Asia bar Hong Kong. East Asia (besides Hong Kong) and Southeast Asia (excluding the countries previously mentioned) are within the American sphere of influence while the areas previously mentioned are within the British sphere of historical influence. That could play a large role.
There’s no money in London man.
Who wants to live in London when you get paid less but pay just as much in NYC
asians are 1 dimensional in migration patterns as opposed to africans or indians or middle east. they flock mainly to usa n canada. very limited in global portability.
East Asians generally don't like Muslims or Indians/Pakistanis, so given Britain's demographic shift it's probably not very high up on their list of places to relocate to. In China for example they literally have government travel warnings about those groups for any tourists traveling to the UK or EU. Also London is a pretty miserable city to most non-UKers so if you're going to try and move to a Western-focused desk, there's better options.
A lot of East Asians still come to the UK. They just don’t stay as much (although I’ve noticed this start to change)
Most international students are still from China from what I can see
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