The best banking jobs to do in London, New York and Hong Kong

What’s the best place to work in finance? No, we don’t mean the best business areas or banks. Geographically, what is the best country to be in? 

Click here to join the bubble by eFinancialCareers, our new anonymous community. ✍️

Data from New Financial, a London-based think tank, might have an answer. Analysing the world’s top financial centres at country level from 2015 to 2025, it deduced that the US is by far the best place to be. The UK is in a relatively distant second place, and Hong Kong in a very distant third place.

Although New Financial's analysis is at country level, it closely approximates to cities. London is the dominant financial centre in the UK. Hong Kong is a city state and New York dominates the US. although Miami is up-and-coming. 

The best places to be in in investment banking

Investment banking as an industry was very split. While the US dominated cross-border M&A, for example, New Financial noted that Hong Kong was best in cross-border initial public offerings (IPOs). Hong Kong was also the best place to be for secondary issuances such as follow-on & convertible issuances.

The UK, meanwhile, was extremely good for debt capital markets. New Financial said that the UK was the best place in the world for international debt issuances and environmental, social, and governance bonds especially.

The best places to be in in sales & trading

Generally, the best place to be in sales & trading is the UK. New Financial noted that over the counter (OTC) interest rate derivatives trading, OTC foreign exchange derivatives trading, and foreign exchange spot trading were all dominated by the UK. The US is the best place to be for commodities futures & options trading, however.

The best places to be in on the buy-side

The best non-bank financial institutions to be at, generally speaking, was the USA. According to New Financial, it was by far the best place to be for private equity fundraising, asset management, and fintech investment, among others. It was also the best places to be in the world for hedge funds, by a country mile.

For the table above, scores are relative. A score of 100 indicates the largest financial centre in that field – for example, the US scoring 100 in “asset management” means that it is the largest asset management hub in the world.

The top three international financial centres have been the same since 2015, New Financial deduced. Fourth place, currently occupied by Germany, was previously held by China. Singapore, on a steady upward trend, slotted into fifth for 2025. The top three were also the same in 2020.

Although the US and UK have been dominant in first and second place for at least the past decade, the UK has gradually regressed as a centre, from a score of 59 in 2015 to a score of 54 in 2025. In that same time period, the US was flat at 82, and Hong Kong went from 13 to 16. Singapore increased from a score of 6 in 2015 to a score of 11 in 2025.

The US’ financial primacy is backed by its huge domestic market. New Financial calculated that, while 56% and 50% of UK and Hong Kong financial activity respectively was foreign, just 26% of the US’ was.

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, WhatsApp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Signal: sarahbutcher.22  Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. 

Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: comments are moderated intermittently by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You must take sole responsibility for comments you post on this site. We will take reasonable steps to weed out anything that we consider to be offensive or inappropriate.