On average, M&A is one the highest paying jobs in banking

Which is the highest paying job in banking?

According to a new study by pay benchmarking website, Emolument, it's mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Based on data registered by its users and despite the fact that M&A bankers have had a comparatively bad year, Emolument suggests that the median pay for M&A bankers is higher than for people in a range of other banking roles. 

Emolument suggests that median M&A banker compensation in London is £350k ($453k). This amounts to roughly the mean compensation level for third year vice presidents (VP3s) in London according to the recent Dartmouth Partners salary and bonus survey, and may be a bit high given the preponderance of lower paid analysts and associates in M&A teams.

Predictably, all of Emolument's best paid jobs in banking are in the front office: you're not going to make a median package of £300k in operations. Institutional sales is deemed to be the worst of the best paid roles, possibly due to the proliferation of low touch sales jobs, where you're basically servicing hundreds of different clients at a very high level. 

Curiously, trading jobs aren't in the chart, despite many of them paying more than M&A. Emolument says traders actually rank sixth, with a salary of £190,000 and a bonus of £108,000.

Meanwhile, if you earn £200k and are feeling underpaid by virtue of Emolument's figures, you might want to try benchmarking yourself to a different type of person. - Outside of banking and at the bottom end of the pay scale, Emolument says the median retail sales assistant earns £28k.

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