Salary and bonuses for investment banking analysts at Barclays, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and more

Junior investment bankers work hard, but they’re paid better than any other industry for their efforts. What’s more, they’ve enjoyed salary increases over the past two years as banks battle to stave of threats from private equity firms and other, more alluring, sectors.

But how much do they really earn now? And is there any discrepancy between the large players? Handily, executive search firm Arkesden has just published a new compensation survey for investment banking analysts and has broken out pay for each of the major institutions.

The vast majority of investment banks in London now pay their first year analysts £50k in salary, except Credit Suisse which pays an average of £51k, it suggests.

Surprisingly, Barclays leads the pack across all three analyst levels, though, paying its second year analysts £57k and bumping up third year analyst by £5k, to £65k. As we mentioned, Barclays is accelerating the promotion of its third year analysts to associates by six months, so this could explain the discrepancy.

Only Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank have handed out pay rises to their second year analysts this year, thereby bringing analyst two salaries in line with competitors.

It’s a much more varied picture when it comes to bonuses, the figures suggest, with Bank of America Merrill Lynch paying its juniors the most in variable compensation across the board.

First year analysts at BAML received an average of £35k, which is £5k more than the average at other banks on the list. Most banks paid their second year analysts £40k, but the average was £48k at BAML. BAML's £65k average bonus for third-year analysts was £15k more than its competitors paid.

However, Goldman pays both a bonus of £30k plus a stub of £15k for its first year analysts, meaning total comp comes in at £95k.

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