Goldman Sachs' London office: Fewer people, higher pay

Goldman Sachs’ job cuts might be ongoing for the firm globally, but in London things are looking up. 

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Accounts for Goldman Sachs International, Goldman's London office, show that after cutting staff last year, Goldman has added 73 people so far in 2024. It's still down 487 on the UK employees it had at the start of 2023 and 397 down on the number it had at the start of 2022, but things appear to be slowly moving in the right direction.

Now that Goldman has fewer people in London, it's paying them more. Average pay per head at the London office was $209k in Q2 2024, up 23% on the same quarter last year and up 69% on the same period in 2022. 

As ever, working for Goldman Sachs in London is more lucrative than working for Goldman Sachs globally. Average pay per head for the London office was $428k in the half of 2024, versus $199k globally.

The pay increase for London staff followed a 23% increase in investment banking revenues at Goldman Sachs International in the first half of the year, and a 3% and 7% fall in equities and fixed income revenues respectively. London salespeople and traders did less well than their global counterparts: globally fixed income and equities revenues were up 17 and 7%, respectively. The implication is that higher pay in London will be going to the bankers rather than the traders this year. 

Goldman is already the best-paying investment bank in the world according to our 2024 salary & bonus report, and the scale of its generosity is even more apparent at the highest end of the scale: EU-mandated remuneration disclosures show that it paid more people over €5m ($5.5m) than any other major bank in Europe.

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