Goldman code staff earned the average UK salary for the entire year by Wednesday lunchtime

The New Year has barely begun, but thanks to the compensation figures released by various US investment banks during the depths of the Christmas period it's possible to surmise that several hundred senior bankers in London have out-earned the average UK employee already. At Goldman Sachs, it seems that they did so by Wednesday lunchtime.

As a reminder, banks' 'remuneration disclosure' documents revealed that in 2012:

- Goldman Sachs paid its average London-based member of code staff £2.9m.

- Citi paid its average London-based member of code staff £2.3m.

- Citi paid its average London-based member of code staff £2.1m

- Bank of America paid its average London-based member of code staff £1.5m.

The average UK salary is £27k. Assuming US banks are paying their code staff as handsomely in 2014 as they did in 2012, and given that when holidays, weekends and bank holidays are discounted there are around 229 working days each year (assuming bankers don't work weekends), the implication is that code staff are earning rather a lot on a daily basis.

Assuming equivalency with 2012, at Goldman Sachs, average pay per day for code staff is £12.5k. At Citi it's £10.2k. At JPM it's 9.1k. And at BAML it's £6.5k.

This suggests that Goldman code staff had earned the entire average UK salary by Wednesday lunchtime, that JPM and Citi bankers had earned it by Wednesday afternoon and that Bank of America code staff will have earned it by lunchtime tomorrow.

Not bad for the first week's work of the year.